The Adventures of Goldie Locks
by jones2000
Summary: Goldie Locks is happy as a typing error that the rest of Make-Believe Land tries to ignore. But when she meets a young wizard named Teddy Lupin, she is thrown headfirst into a battle against the Fan Domain, with the whole of Cannon at stake.
1. Introduction to Our Intrepid Anti Hero

_**AN - Warning: The first two chapters of this story were written at the beginning of my high school days several years ago now, and may not contain a coherent plot, likable characters, or that thing known as humor. Please don't write in to say how bad it was, because this was only started to blow off steam and entertain myself each time I hit the terrible Writer's Block Wall, and had seemingly lost my grasp on any writing skills whatsoever I may have posessed.**_

* * *

_Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there was the story of a pretty young girl called Goldilocks and three bears._

Well, sort of. Actually this is the story of Goldie Locks and the three hedgehogs, Mama hedgehog, Papa hedgehog and Baby hedgehog, also know as Alvin, who lived peacefully in make-believe land, in the Fairy Tale sector.

It was in the morning that the Baby hedgehog, hereafter known as 'Alvin', got out of bed. And this is where the insanity begins.

"Mama!" Alvin jumped up onto his little rickety chair. The smallest chair groaned, and threatened to crack under his weight. "What's for breakfast?"

Mama hedgehog stroked her long pointed snout. "Porridge."

"What? Again? I HATE porridge!"

"You'll eat it and you'll like it." Mama replied.

"I'll eat it, but I won't like it." Alvin vowed.

"Good morning, family," Papa hedgehog entered the kitchen grandly. "Good morning, wife. What is for breakfast today?"

"Porridge." Mama replied laconically.

"What? Again?"

"Don't start." Mama growled. She banged the pot on the table, and slopped three bowls full.

"It looks like runny snot," Alvin commented, none to helpfully. "Cold, runny snot."

Papa pinched his nose and forced a spoonful of the vile substance down his throat.

"Isn't there anything else in the cupboard? Really, anything," He gasped.

Mama let her spoon fall into her porridge with a sickly 'splat'.

"Fine," Mama snapped. "Fine. Alvin, get your coat and hat. You-" She pointed at her husband. "Get your wallet. I'm not spending my money because you're being an old woman." Mama hedgehog huffed, and snatched the car keys from the table.

"Perhaps you should attempt to keep me in the standards I am accustomed to, and then I wouldn't complain as much." Papa Hedgehog shot back. "You, boy. In the car."

"Yes!" Alvin got his coat and hat. Maybe he could convince Papa to buy that new attachment to his X-Box.

Meanwhile, halfway across the country, the lethal Goldie Locks was sawing through the bars of her cell in the infamous jail for Fairy Tale Psychopaths with a nail file that had been smuggled past Fairy Tale security in a chocolate cake. It was such a cliché that no one would possibly notice. But then, her guard, Prince Charming, wouldn't have noticed a dragon walk by unless it had been wearing a skirt.

The bar finally snapped on half. "Yes," She hissed. Goldie Locks had been charged with several break-ins, two counts of theft of a breakfast cereal, and one count of impersonating a Fairy Tale Character, namely Miss Goldilocks from Goldilocks and the Three Bears. She had the features of a bulldog that had been crushed between a Mack truck and a wall, and had a knack for picking doors with her front teeth or her double jointed toes.

In other words, Goldie Locks was one of the most notorious villains this side of the yellow brick road. To give you some idea of how evil, the Wicked Witch of the West and the two Ugly Stepsisters were her drinking buddies.

"You! Halt!" Barry the Wolf yelled. Barry maintained that he was the star of such fairy tales as the Three Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood, and complained that he was the unsung hero. Barry also had the unfortunate duty of being security guard in the Fairy Tale Unstable Occupants Unfit For Human Interaction Ward (FTUOUFHIW for short).

Goldie bolted. Barry chased her down the corridor. "You can huff and puff all you want, Wolf, you wont get me!" Sure enough, Goldie spied her escape-Pinocchio, the wooden puppet. She seized him by the strings and screamed.

"Tell a lie!"

"I don't tell lies!" The puppet declared in outrage. His nose grew so long that it caught on Barry's suspenders and pined him to the ceiling.

"Hey, wha…?" Barry rose to the ceiling, bouncing on his suspenders. He shook a fist at Goldie. "I'll get you, Goldie Locks!" He roared

"See ya later, suckers!" Goldie yelled, skipping past Hansel (_Hansel?_) and Gretel who were busy stuffing their faces with candy and gingerbread on the bottom step.

"Catch me if you can!" Goldie Locks grinned.

"Hey, aren't you-?" Puss in Boots stared, suddenly worried about his new troll-hide boots. Goldie pushed Puss back into the rubbish bins. Puss struggled to extract himself, his boots waving in the air.

"Crazy women fairies," He grumbled.

Goldie needed a place to hide out, and quick.

But then again, luck had always favored Goldie, and soon she came across a cozy little cottage in the middle of the woods,

She crept up to the door, and pushed it in. The door swung open. Good grief. Whoever owns this place was asking for a break in.

Ah hah! Food! Goldie sat down at the table and proceeded to devour the porridge. She tried the big bowl of porridge. She coughed and dunked her head into the washing up water in the sink. Too hot!

Goldie tried the second bowl, took one mouthful, and spat the porridge back in the bowl. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve. Too cold and slimy!

Reaching for the last bowl, she put he finger into it to make sure it was the right temperature, upended the bowl into her mouth and burped happily, rubbing her stomach.

"Ah, that hits the spot," Goldie yawned, suddenly feeling amazingly tired. On her way upstairs, she quickly pawed through the family's possessions, pocketing Mama hedgehog's gold and silver (Little did Goldie know that Papa only ever bought imitation jewels for his wife)

Goldie let herself into the three hedgehog's bedroom, and rubbed her hands together gleefully. This would be the first time she had slept in a real bed since she was merely the sprightly young age of 304.

Before going to bed, she yet again went through all draws in the room, but finding only a woolly snout warmer and an odd sock.

Sighing, she went to the first bed and sat down. "Holy!" She jumped up, rubbing her backside. Grimacing, she pulled a rusty old coin from her pocket and dropped it on the bedcovers. The coin bounced several times before splitting down the middle. "Too hard," She mumbled.

Goldie sat down on the second bed. The bed pulled her down like quicksand. "Damn!" Goldie cried. "Help! This bed is too soft!" Eventually Goldie extracted herself from the deep fabric, and approached the last bed warily. She experimentally tested it with a finger. Not too hard, not too soft, just-

"Who the hell are you?"

Goldie jumped.

"Who the hell are you?" the voice persisted.

"Who the hell are you?" Goldie countered.

The girl came around the corner. "I'm Cinderella. I'm the three Hedgehog's house keeper,"

Goldie froze. "H- hedgehogs?"

"Yeah," Cinderella was tall and lanky, nothing of how they described her in her Fairy Tale. She even had a pimple on the end of her nose. But then, the merchandising would never have sold as well if certain facts hadn't been temporarily ignored. "The three Bears used to live here, but after a certain incident with a girl that shall remain nameless, they packed up and shifted out, subletting the place to three hedgehogs."

If there was anything in the world Goldie Locks couldn't stand, it was hedgehogs.

Some things, such as a fear of fire, would be known as a rational fear. Fearing hedgehogs was like fearing peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of your mouth: totally irrational.

Then, without so much as a buy-your-leave, Goldie jumped out the second floor window. Cinderella listened closely for the satisfying 'SPLAT!' that was to follow, shut the window and drew the curtains.

Slowly, Cinderella peeled of her rubber mask.

"No one intrudes on my territory!" The real Goldilocks gave an insane cackle of laughter, throwing her golden curls back.

**EPILOGUE **

Alvin the hedgehog was relived to find out that all his porridge had gone mysteriously, leaving him to lead a porridge-free childhood. He later became one of the main activists in the long-time war to ban porridge in Make-Believe land.

Mama and Papa separated soon after Mama found out that her wedding ring was a fake diamond.

Goldie Locks was peeled of the ground by the Fairy Tale Retrieval Squad, then sentenced to 297 years of community service for breaking and entering, under the watchful eyes of the Three Blind Mice, and Dopey from the Seven Dwarfs.

The rambling Goldilocks was arrested shortly after her assault on Goldie Locks, and told the officers that took her away, that she wanted revenge. She is now serving a long time spell in the Fairy Tale Insanity Ward. Agent Sleeping Beauty and Agent Little Red Riding Hood were to receive commendations from the Fairy Tale Police, but Sleeping Beauty fell asleep during the proceedings and Little Red Riding Hood needed to bring some goodies to Grandma.

**AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER. **


	2. Get the Disney Executives away from Me

_Once upon a time…_

Goldie Locks, notorious villain and porridge-stealer of Make-Believe Land was in a sweet – sour moment in her jail cell at the Criminal Fairy Hybrids To Sick And Twisted For Normal Civilization (CFHTSATFNC for short.)

The sweetness was due to the news that her father Dr Newt Eugene Ignatius Aloysius Montgomery Locks Pd, the professor that had standardized the thickness of cauldron-bottoms throughout Make-Believe Land had finally bought the farm, passing away when trampled to death by the eight-legged racehorses he was breeding for financial purposes. The perpetrators of the crime had so far gone unpunished, mainly because no-one could catch them. The official letter Goldie had received from her father's colleagues was a small scribble on a pink post-it not that read simply that Big Nose was dead.

The other sweet news was that since Goldie's mother had died horrifically in a terrible typing incident, Goldie was supposed to be the only benefactor of Newt's cauldron fortune.

The sour taste was the news that the wily professor, to keep his money-grubbing daughter off his bazillions, the old dwarf had donated 99.99 of all his profits and holdings to his two favorite charities, Alcoholics Anonymous and the RSPCFC (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fictional Characters). So in fact, all that Goldie really inherited from her bastard of a dad was a copy of Playgnome, half a ham sandwich, the manor's outhouse, a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice along with several dozen cauldrons and a lame eight-legged pony called Lenny.

It was only a small consolation to know that now she could charge rent for the elves to use the manor toilet.

However, one of her compatriots had come up with a cunning plan.

"Sell the cauldrons." Hattie, the wicked queen advised. "I met the most wonderful little man over in Fiction the other day. A little smelly, but that's what you get for quality these days. Fletcher, he said his name was. Mundungus Fletcher. Here's his card." A gilded piece of paper that probably cost more than Goldie could steal in a year was thrust under her nose.

"'His Royal Highness, Mund Un Gus. No job too big, no fee too big. Wide range of talents from accounting to stealing back massive amounts of gold from a deceased loved one. Call Mund Un Gus, Prince.' "

"It's sort of an in-joke. Prince of Thieves, see?"

"Sometimes I wonder about you."

"Come on, Locks! With that kind of money you can afford to hire _Artemis Fowl_ as your lawyer."

And that small conversation was what lead to the assembled people that reluctantly sloped up for jury duty to converse animatedly among each other before Beau Peep announced and announcement.

"Not Guilty!" The courtroom flew into an uproar.

"Bribery!"

"Fakery!"

"Mummy!"

Barry the Wolf scrambled to his feet. "I have been violated!" He bellowed. "I want to see some punishment!"

"I want my lawyer!"

"I want my solicitor!"

"I want my mummy!"

Goldie jumped to the desktop. "Can't catch me!" She crowed.

The judge banged his gravel on the dais. "Miss Locks, curb yourself before I find you in contempt!" Goldie stuck out her tongue and made a rude gesture before skipping down the front steps of the Kangaroo Court, remembering to sign some autographs before she left.

* * *

Goldie Locks, now landlady of an outhouse in the ever-expanding settlement of Typing-Error, and proud new owner of a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice and a lame eight legged pony tried to settle back into life as a full citizen. She really did.

Honest and truly.

Alright, maybe not. Didn't have you there for a minute, did we?

Goldie meandered down the street, hands in the pockets of her new nylon flowing trench coat. On every second step she stumbled on the hem, but that didn't matter cause it was cool (the current fashions in Make-Believe Land never fitted properly anyway, so she just looked like another never-was). She'd always wanted a coat like this since she saw five movies on the one ticket when she was younger. And now she had the real deal. No doubt Neo was still wondering why his coat decided to evaporate. Fastest hands in the west.

Oh, the naivety of fictional characters.

Goldie snatched an apple from a nearby cart and bit into it. In the town square, a hawker was advertising the Daily Fable.

"Extra, extra! Read all about it! The Boy Who Lived caught in compromising position with griffin! Obi Wan, dead or just faking it! Jedi mind trick at large! Puff the Magic Dragon goes on rampage, two kittens injured and a budgie receives counseling! For more details of the wedding of Gandalf the Grey to the Wicked Witch of the West, see this week's issue of Fairies Weekly!"

Goldie chewed her apple and picked up a copy of the Quibbler. The headline bared 'Chewbacca's hair-plug shock'. She looked past the magazine and stared at the hawker.

"Hay, aren't you-?"

The tall man looked down on her disdainfully and aloofly flicked his long scarf up over his shoulder. "Yes. I am the Time Lord, Gallifreyan, the Doctor."

Goldie twiddled her thumbs. " Actually, I was thinking you were the guy with the scarf and the jelly babies gimmick."

The Doctor looked annoyed. "That too. No one remembers you for any quality work you did."

The dwarf-fairy hybrid glanced at one of his papers. Underneath the headline 'Lonely Beast Prince, in having experience with Princesses, seeks poodle' was a photo of a huge castle on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea.

Visions of golden candlesticks and talking clocks danced in Goldie's head.

"Where's that? Who owns it?"

"That? That's on the edge of Fairy Tale and Middle Earth, which you can probably see, being slightly less dim-witted than those who religiously watch things like daytime soaps. It belongs to the Beast."

"The who?"

"The Beast."

"How did he become a beast? Did he eat some bad clams?"

"A witch."

"A witch? A witch? Why's it always a witch?"

"How should I know? It's not my department."

It was a nice place. Nice view. Didn't look like there was any electricity, but still. There were no castles hereabouts until you went into Fiction City, or wandered even as far as Original-Fiction Capitol. In that moment, the house on the hill became Goldie's next target.

"Oi! You didn't pay for that!"

"I like a woman who stands up for herself."

"And who the hell are you?"

"The name's Gaston. Just Gaston."

"Well, Just Gaston. Get out of my way or you'll be Just Passed-On."

"Attitude. I like that in a woman."

Goldie groaned and reached out to take a passing woman by the arm.

"Wasyername?"

"Belle." Goldie pushed them both together.

"Belle, Gaston. Gaston, Belle. I hope you have a very fulfilling life with together."

"Who owns the horse?" Someone demanded behind her. Goldie jumped as she was almost bowled over. "Neigh."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Neigh." Lenny insisted. "Neigh, snort, whinny." Goldie gritted her teeth.

"I'd sent you to the slaughterhouse if the pigs hadn't taken over. Babe in one mean son of a bitch."

"Snort, bite, nip."

"Watch your language, horse."

And so she and Lenny went on their way. Around noon that day she knocked on the door of the castle on the hill. It creaked open seemingly by itself. "Creepy."

She entered. Lenny tried to follow, but tripped over his own hooves.

"No. No, you stay out here. Stay. Out. Here. You."

The halls were deserted lit by only a few flickering candles.

"Hellloooo," Goldie called softly. "Any mad megalomaniacs waiting in the dark to kill the poor helpless female?"

Then something crashed into her ankles. She looked down and saw that a candlestick being chased by a wind-up clock had tripped over her feet. "Good grief."

"Oi, my head." The candlestick muttered, holding a candle support to his, his head, Goldie guessed. The clock was the first to rouse and he shook himself menacingly.

"What the hell are you doing in here, you young scamp? Do you want to be used as a chew toy?"

"Cogsworth, mind your manners." The candlestick righted itself. He bowed low to her. "Lumiere at your service, milady. Pray tell, are you the one that has come to lift the curse?"

"Eh, what?"

"The ancient scriptures tell of a fair maiden who will one day come to steal away the heart of the Master and lift the curse for all time."

"Whatever." Goldie shook the candlestick off her foot. "What ancient scriptures? I'm sure they're expensive – er, impressive."

Lumiere pointed up toward the wall. On it was a framed book. 'Disney's Beauty and the Beast in a Hundred Words.'

'Oh no.' Goldie thought. 'Why didn't the paper-hawker tell me that this castle was an unofficial plot point for Disney Land?'

"Who disturbs my solitude?" Someone bellowed.

"May I assume that that is the beast?"

"Eh, yes. I recommend that you run now."

"No way. My grandmother looked like a demon from the pits of Robot hell, but I still had to sit on her knee every Christmas. No jerkface scares me off from what I want to steal, er, er, _seal away _for safekeeping. No even if he's big and hairy and with slobbering jaws …" She then noticed that both clock and candlestick had gone completely rigid. "He's right behind me, isn't he?"

She turned around slowly. A huge, hulking creature with fangs that could easily pierce your skull was facing her. Apparently he had been patiently waiting for her to finish her game with the ornaments.

"Fantastic."

The Beast looked down on her before quite suddenly offering her a paw. "Oh gawd, it is so nice to have a visitor in all these years. You have absolutely no idea how much of a pain it was to try and get someone in to put up some fresh wallpaper. Like, you know, you would think just because I look menacing I'd tear your face off. And which is a really stupid attitude when you look at some of the residents in Canon Corner…"

Goldie stared partly in shock and partly in amusement. This was the Beast?

"You absolutely must join me for dinner."

* * *

"I refuse to wear that!" Goldie dashed down the dress the candlestick was struggling to hold up. "But the Master insists," he protested weakly from under a fold of fabric.

"I don't care if the Master wants me to wear a bikini. I will not insult women everywhere and the feminist movement. If he wants to perv on someone he can go check out the house-cat."

"Poor Fluffy was turned into the royal scratching post." Cogsworth said almost apologetically. "Such a sweet little kitty."

Five minutes later Goldie pushed open the door to the dining hall. The Beast looked up from his seat. "Why aren't you wearing that dress?"

"Because I don't fancy looking like a cross between a toilet dolly and a hooker." Goldie replied. She gestured to a silver mirror that was by the Beast's elbow. "What's that?"

"A magic mirror."

_Isn't it always?_ Goldie thought.

"It allows you to see what you have left behind. I though you might want to use it."

"Why would I want-? Oh, the scriptures, right." She took the mirror and looked into it. Nothing happened for a long while, then a face jumped out at her.

"Yah!"

_"Snort."_ Said Lenny.

"Take it back! I don't want it!"

The Beast came grandly to his feet. "Dance with me?"

"Eh, okay."

As the furniture miraculously burst into show tunes, the Beast looked down on Goldie, who was concentrating on avoiding his feet. "Goldie."

"What?"

"I know we have only known each other for a short time, but I think I love you." Goldie stopped there and then. He must have read '_Prince Charming's 101 Ways To Get Laid On A First Date'_. "Kiss me, Goldie!"

"Are you nuts?" She exploded.

"Oh, please." He said. "You see, there's an enchanted rose in the attic and if the last petal falls without me experiencing true love's kiss, I'm stuck like this forever!"

"Have you been watching Shrek?" Goldie asked shrewdly. The Beast pouted and began to get teary eyed. "Oh, god, don't. Um, it's not you, it's me. I just prefer men with less facial hair. We can still be friends. I'm not right for you. You'll meet somebody else."

"I don't think I've heard so many bad clichés in the one paragraph." Cogsworth said.

"Look, I've really got to go somewhere." She stepped back.

"Fine. Leave me to nurse a broken heart!" The Beast bellowed. Goldie turned tail and ran. As she was at the gate, she bumped into the same dark haired pretty woman from earlier.

"Have you seen my father?" Belle asked.

"Try in there." Goldie pointed to the castle.

Once she was safely back in town, she opened a bag she had hidden under her coat.

"Why didn't you break the curse?" Lumiere demanded.

"Are you insane? He was cute and all, but you can get a dozen princes a penny these days. Talking candlesticks are much, much rarer."

**And they all lived happily ever after.**


	3. Don't have a Picnic in the Fan Domain

AN – _(Don't mean to offend anyone…)_

**Glossary of Terms**

**Authors: The benevolent Gods of Make-Believe Land.**

**Gerberites: Michael ****Gerber is the author of spooftastic books, **_**The Slobbit, Barry Trotter,**_** and others. His creations do not fit entirely into Cannon or Fannon, and therefore the characters can move freely between Fiction City and the Fan Domain without being Glomped.**

**Glomped: **_**Glomp.**_** An uncomfortable and often painful experience for the Cannon character in question. **

**Angsted: **_**Angst.**_** Any Cannon character can be Angsted, generally only at the Author's ****will****. However, creatures of the Fan Domain have figured out how to Angst their favourite character for their own ends. **

**OOC'd: **_**Out Of Character**_**. Mary Sues/Gary Stus possess the power of causing any Cannon to become completely OOC'd, or **_**De-characterised. **_

**AND… Sueification: The nasty process whereby a perfectly nice Original Character is captured by the Domain and slowly transformed into another Mary Sue.**

**WARNING TO ALL CANNONS - DO NOT approach a Mary Sue without the proper filtration gear as issued by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fictional Characters, or you run the risk of becoming a slack-jawed, bug-eyed, love-struck, freak. Yes, freak. You.**

_Once upon a time…_

Have you ever had someone come up to you, maybe a friend or a delusional other, and asked you to _imagine this_ before launching into their much-loved theory about their favourite book-slash-TV show-slash-movie. And then slowly proceeding to grind your ears off with what they would like to see, which character they thought was _absolute hotness_, what sort of love interest they would have for said _absolute hotness_, and what other supporting characters they would have loved to run through a meat mincer.

And all that theorising naturally and messily gives birth to the fanfiction, and with it, the general abuse of the written word.

Did you ever wonder where those characters went once they were out of your system for good? Once you screwed up said story and threw it in the wastepaper basket before setting said wastepaper basket on fire, would they finally stop plaguing your brain with plot bunnies and random scenarios?

The answer was no.

Once your characters have passed on to Make-Believe Land, they'll never leave you alone.

Make-Believe Land was made up of several smaller territories. The shire of Fairy Tales was an ever-shrinking domain, only still existing at the mercy of nogalstic adults and manufacturing-obsessed, ruthless Disney executives. The inhabitants lived in fear of being turned into one of the greatest of mythical beasts, the Cash Cow.

To the south of the shire there were the two sprawling lands of Silverscreen and the Tube (Many children know about the Movies versus TV war of the 90's, both sides taking heavy casualties. Finally the _plausible deniability _rule was passed in 1999, meaning that a TV show and its characters could deny any knowledge of the movie it spawned and vice versa.)

A little to the west of Fairy Tales was the Original Fiction Capitol. The few inhabitants were mostly polite, but tried to avoid contact with most other Fictional Beings, for fear of being called a Plagiarist and a Forger, which really made no sense because when applied in the same context, they were technically the same thing.

To the north of Fairy Tales were the wonders of Fiction City. Fiction City seemed to be ever expanding, what with _graphic novels _being now accepted into the fold. You could find them all there, everybody that was anybody that had inspired somebody could all be found drinking at the Cannon Corner.

And last, but definitely not least, there was the Fan Domain.

No cannon character could enter and emerge un-glomped.

Even the meanest, dirtiest, ugliest son of a witch that had ever been produced by the written word could find companionship, and more often than not, a band of stalkers not far behind. Cannon characters had been driven insane dealing with the hoards of ravenous beasts that were almost hourly inflicted upon the walls of Fiction City, causing the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fictional Characters to step up and actually _do something._

The armoury hadn't been opened since The War of the Words, when the City was almost overwhelmed by the sudden influx of poorly executed, poorly spelt, mutant, halfbreed, insanely complex OCs. The whole of Cannon was required to be armed at all times. _(Original Fiction Capitol stringently denied any responsibility for these 'original' characters, insisting that since the Phony Phelon Act was signed, they had placed a strict non-interference policy with the people of Fiction. Failure to comply could result in a heavy fine, which was a bit of a pain, since each town in the Capitol tended to use different currencies depending on the Author.)_

And during that war, brave heroes from all the realms were introduced to the person that would become their deadliest and most nubile enemy. The fairest of them all, she called herself the True Sue.

Each Fiction was equipped with weapons of all sorts, and amulets and protection spells were rife. The True Sue was the first, and since then, they kept coming. No matter what Cannon, no matter what Fiction, they came, on orders from the True Sue. They would rule Fiction City, and all of Cannon would bow down before them. (And other things too, but to maintain the story rating, we wont go into that.)

But not if the Royal Society had a say in the matter.

Teddy Lupin sat across from the woman. She was staring at him so intently that sweat began to bead on his brow and he reached a hand back to make sure that his Anti-Sue Filter was still secure. Mary Sues, they could hypnotise you and turn you into a gooey mess with a glance of their big blue/green/amber/purple/pink eyes if you were unprotected, so Teddy's visor was low over his face and set to _mild burn. _Sues also seemed to excrete a mild smell, a perfume almost. Strawberry, lavender, honeysuckle, musk, he had whiffed it all in the time he had been working for the Society, and his stomach still squirmed uncomfortably each time he had to sit in on an interview.

Studies had been undertaken on the smell that Sues gave off to ensnare their prey, and after five years, all Make-Believe Land's most powerful doctors and institutions came to one conclusion. _It's like when a dog whizzes on a tree to mark their territory._

"Why don't you take that off so I can see your lovely eyes?" The Sue asked in her honeyed tones. Teddy turned up a switch on the side of his mask that read _static interference_. He wasn't going to take any chances, unlike his poor father. Remus Lupin had failed to turn up his Sue Filter and had ended up being Angsted. It was a terrible thing to be Angsted. Suddenly all you saw was doom and gloom and it took years to get back to normal.

But still, that was slightly better than being OOC'd.

"Just because I haven't been around that long doesn't make me an amateur." He snapped. His patience was beginning to fray, and a stripe of angry red weaved its way through his hair. The Sue cooed with delight and clapped her hands adorably as she beheld this, and Teddy turned the filter up to _maximum burn_.

"I know." The Sue said. "The Authors don't even know you, but you've got so many Sues out there, dying for a piece…" She reached out to him and Teddy snatched his hand back, even though he knew that the manacles would hold her in place.

"I'm with Victoire." He growled. "You all know that."

"It doesn't mean we have to accept it, though." Mary Sue purred.

It was then that the thick, heavy door was flung open. "Don't let her bait you, kid."

The man in the doorway was familiar to him, and Teddy knew who he was by reputation more than anything else, and he rose to his feet and snapped a salute. "Sir!"

"Don't do that." He was stocky and hadn't shaved for a while. Even though he was rude, abrasive, callous, and occasionally forgot to wash, this man was still somehow one of the most Fangirled! characters of all time. Little boys who got beat up for their lunch money every other day wanted to _be_ him, and girls wanted to take him home and crack open that hard exterior and expose the soft, gooey centre underneath.

_As if._

There was even a picture of him on the Royal Society recruiting posters outside the interview room. _The Society needs you!_

He was the Wolverine.

The Canadian raised an eyebrow at Teddy as he noticed that the young man was staring at him. The Mary Sure seemed to be going into transportations of delight at the two of them being in the same room together. Wolverine noticed this and grimaced behind his filter. "Let's get started."

He slapped a folder down in front of the Sue before sitting down and crossing his feet on the surface of the desk. "Open it." He barked, as Teddy cautiously sunk down into his own seat.

The Sue curled her lip sulkily, and on her it looked quite cute. A blinking light was flashing in the corner of Teddy's visor. _Adoration overload. Estimated battery power, 10 hours. _

"You lot're getting more and more powerful lately, huh?" Wolverine said conversationally. "I mean, getting right up to the Capitol and all."

"I am a citizen of the world." Her beautifully rounded vowels were captured on tape. "You cannot tell me where to go."

"Oh, but I can. I can make your life _hell_."

"What do you want with me, James?" And the innocent, suggestive way she asked it made the question seem as dirty as hell. Wolverine grabbed the folder away from her and flipped it open. The face of the missing person glared up at them, along with a short profile.

"Where is this man?" Teddy asked, tapping a finger on the photograph.

"Cute." The Sue said absently. Then, a minute later – "Where's who?"

"Don't yank me around lady." Teddy carefully backed away as he noticed Wolverine curl his hands into fists. "This isn't good cop, bad cop. This is freak and magic man."

"Thanks." Teddy said dryly.

"Don't feel too flattered. It coulda been the other way around."

"Two months ago this character was Cannon-napped right out of his own show." Teddy said, after giving his superior a wordless glare. "Three of the supporting cast were Angsted and the second male lead was OOC'd."

Wolverine grunted in disgust.

"What have you been doing to him the past two months?" Teddy asked. "Is he alright? Still… alive?"

"How could you accuse _moi_ of harming one of my favourite bad boys?" Mary Sue asked innocently.

"Where is he? How did you force him to go with you?"

"I have nothing to tell you."

"You listen, lady. This kid here has seen some nasty Sues in his time. There's no way Dean Winchester would have gone with no Sue." Wolverine, sitting beneath a no-smoking sign, lit up.

"That sentence is grammatically incorrect." She giggled, not rattled in the slightest. Teddy frowned. There was no way they were going to get anything out of this one. Most Sues were ditzy, but this one was ditzy _and_ loyal to the True Sue _and_ not that bright.

Finally Wolverine indicated to Teddy that the two of them should speak outside the interview room. Teddy followed the mutant until the door shut behind them in the secure area behind the mirrored wall.

"She's not cracking." Juliet Butler said. Juliet had managed to claw her way back from her own impending Sueification, and was now a valuable member of the Cannon team.

"No." Wolverine said.

"What now?" Teddy asked.

Juliet cracked her knuckles. "I could try to be a bit more _persuading_, if you want."

Any other time Wolverine would have said yes. This young Winchester guy belonged to a Cannon favourite, and until he was back in the cast, his show was suspended indefinitely. But maybe it was time to cut their losses. Follow the trail back to the nest, and destroy the True Sue before she could overcome all of Cannon.

"We let her go."

"What?" Juliet and Teddy stared at him in shock.

"We'll get one of our kids to follow 'er back to the nest, maybe do some spring cleaning while they're at it."

"Get rid of them once and for all." Juliet was nodding, her eyes bright.

Teddy still had reservations. "If we send in any of our Cannons into the Fan Domain, they'll be Glomped before they get two steps over the border." He warned.

Wolverine raised an eyebrow. "That's why I want _you _to find someone who can skip from Fiction City to the Fan Domain without being made. Someone fan-bred, but also a fringe member of Cannon."

"_Me_?" Teddy squeaked.

"That's easy." Juliet shrugged. "Just go down to Seedy Street and track down those Michael Gerberite freaks. Original and Cannon. Bingo."

"Nah. They're having their annual 'We Love Convenient Plot Devices' convention." Teddy said absently.

"What?"

"It means they'll drink lots, eat lots, and generally fall asleep in puddles of their own-"

"Woah, I get the picture. Didn't want the picture in the first place, but now I have it. Thanks a bunch."

"So we need someone who is Cannon and Fannon." Teddy said slowly.

"Yep." Wolverine said. "And you have a week to find someone, so Dean Winchester can return on his scheduled airdate and we can track down the True Sue, making sure that Cannon can never be so perverted ever again."

"Or what happens?"

"Fiction City is ground into ash and you'll end up being shared around the Fangirls as the Fan Domain becomes the ultimate power and slowly beings to destroy all of Cannon as we know it."

"Teddy Lupin, you're our only hope." Juliet said solemnly, before slapping him on the shoulder. "So, no pressure?"

Teddy gave an audible gulp.

* * *

The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the skies were an unbelievable blue. It was the sort of day that just made you want to make someone cry.

As you may have guessed, Goldie didn't like perfect days. She didn't like butterflys or pretty flowers or the poofy dresses you saw on most Fairy Tale princesses these days. However, Goldie Locks was like a magpie. She liked sparkly objects.

That was probably why she became a thief in the first place. Well, that and her next-to-criminal upbringing.

Looking down at the paper she'd snarfed from some lady's little purple bag, she studied the front page.

The _Daily Soothsayer_ headline blared _'Society offers reward for information in _Supernatural _abduction case.'_ Goldie snorted. She didn't like the Society. Never did, since that bungle during the War of the Words when she was brought in no less than ten times on suspicion of being an OC.

No matter how many times she had tried to explain it, no one would listen. Her parents had been Fairy Tale Extras, but she was just a simple Error. Doomed to a life of never belonging anywhere.

But able to get in everywhere.

Goldie tucked the paper underneath her arm and continued on down the street. Several Gerberites waved to her as she passed, and several more hurled curses her way. Goldie replied with the finger.

Maybe she could make today a good day.


	4. Who Doesn't love a Teaparty?

_Glossary of Terms_

**Errors: _Miscasts. _Characters brought into existence by the spelling mistakes of the Author. Most resent the reality of their situation and become violent.**

**Fandom Abuse: There are two main forms, Positive!Abuse, and Negative!Abuse, whereby the character in question is often hospitalised after a breakdown.**

**Lore: The Written Word that spawned the Cannon Characters in question. The Fan Domain has their own form of the Lore.**

**Non-Entities: An extremely rare occurrence, where a character is neither Fannon or Cannon, and therefore is said to 'not truly exist within Fiction'.**

**Fannonised: Fictional Characters are graded on how much they have been **_**fannonised**_**, or** **exposed to denizens of the Fan Domain.**

* * *

Teddy Lupin was exhausted. "I can't find anyone." He sounded desperate.

"We need someone who won't be glomped." Juliet said.

"That's it! I know! But every file I've read, _everyone_ is too closely associated to a Cannon of some description."

"Well, we _all _know what happens then, right?" Wolverine put his boots up on his desk, chewing on the end of an unlit cigar.

"We do?" Teddy asked tentatively.

"We do."

"What does?" Juliet asked.

"We can't find our Cannon/Fannon buddy, someone from the Society is goin' in. And I can tell you now, there's no way in hell it's gonna be me."

"Well, I'm out." Juliet said quickly. "Those Mary Sues make me break out in hives."

Both she and Wolverine turned back to the only other person in the room.

Teddy felt like a deer caught in the headlights. "But – but-" He stuttered.

"Get out there, and do a nationwide search for our Non-Entity. And try to get along with 'em too, 'cause you'll be working together for a while to come if this works."

_**Meanwhile… Once upon a time…**_

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there were two children whose lives met with misfortune. They were a brother and sister by the names of Hansel and Gretel, and they lived far away in the scary woods with their father and wicked stepmother.

One day, while out for a walk, the wicked stepmother abandoned them in the woods, hoping they would never return, even though a bullet to the head would have been more efficient, not to mention requiring less effort.

Thankfully clever Hansel had lay down a trail of breadcrumbs as the wicked stepmother lead them deeper and deeper into the forest, so they could find their way back.

But unfortunately, cleaver Hansel was not clever enough to realise that Robin Hood also lived in these woods, and by the time he and his sister wanted to make their way back to their father's house, all the Merry Men had gathered up the food they had scattered, leaving them absolutely and totally lost.

"You _idiot._ You couldn't have used spray-paint or something, could you?"

"Gretel, you know as well as I that the wicked stepmother had confiscated my spray-paint. Oh, what were the two poor children to do?"

"And stop talking like that, you moron."

"You know I narrate when I get nervous."

"Give me that." Gretel peered into the basket Hansel was holding. "Great. You got us lost and _also_ used up all our lunch. I swear, if we're stuck out here for too long, I'm going to eat_ you._"

"Yeah, yeah. What do _you _think we should do now then, smarty?"

Gretel sighed in a long-suffering way, and wrinkled her cute little nose. From her cute little bag, she pulled out her cute little global positioning sytem.

"Wow!" Hansel exclaimed. "How did you know to bring that?"

"Dear brother, how many decades have we been doing this fairy tale now?" Gretel looked down at the screen. "Ooh! There's a house not far from here!"

"Dear sister, there is a ninety eight percent chance that any house in the middle of the woods is owned by a wicked witch that will want to eat us. There's a one-point-five possibility that it will be owned by _ogres_ that will want to eat us, and the last point-oh-five is likely to be seven dwarfs."

"That will eat us?"

"Even worse."

"What's worse than being eaten alive?"

Hansel shivered. "They'll… _sing _to us. Songs about how happy they are to go to _work._"

"Good golly, how terrible!"

And so the brother and sister by the names of Hansel and Gretel continued gaily down the path through the deepest and darkest part of the Forest of Clichés.

_"Hey, you! Stop narrating!"_

Gretel gasped as they came upon the house in the clearing. "Oh, brother! It is a cottage of gingerbread!"

Hansel's stomach grumbled. "I know it is horribly impolite to chew on someone's downpipes, but I am so terribly hungry."

As the children approached the gingerbread cottage, Gretel stopped. "Do you hear voices, Hansel?"

"I think I do, Gretel. Shall we investigate?"

"Of course. Since when has spying on other people's business ever got someone into trouble?"

_"-And then I grabbed him by the tail."_

_"The tail! Oh, Millicent, you are such a character!"_

Hansel and Gretel crept up to the rose bushes and peered through the spines. Some sort of garden party was taking place the other side of the hedges, and the children could she an old crone wrapped up in a black cloak, a kindly woman that looked like somebody's grandmother, and a younger, shorter person with stringy yellow hair and a rather squashed and puglike nose.

"Well, you'll never guess what I did last night." The diminutive woman with the yellow hair said, taking a sausage roll that looked awfully like a finger wrapped up in pastry.

"Or should it be _who _you did?" The old crone cackled out.

"Oh, Beatrice, really." The grandmotherly-like woman scolded.

"Don't look at me like that! You didn't see him!"

"Ladies, please. No one likes a cranky wicked witch."

"Oh dear, Hansel. I think we best go."

"It would be best. But I have already started on the mailbox!"

"Oh, _Hansel_."

And suddenly the teaparty was deserted.

"Oh dear me. Look who we have here." It was the old crone, bending over to see into their hiding place.

"How darling!" The grandmotherly-like woman exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "Aren't they _delicious_? Positively good enough to _eat_!"

"Darling, you really need to move away from the Forest."

"Millicent, you simply _must _start watching your waistline. All this junk food will go straight to your hips." The yellow-haired woman said. The crone and the grandmotherly-like woman simply smiled.

"Who would like to stay for dinner? My cooking is to _die _for."

"Run, Hansel, run!"

"I'm running, I'm running!"

**"_Halt! You are surrounded by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fictional Characters! Stand down immediately!"_**

"Oh, sweet Mary Poppins!" The crone cried out.

"Scarper!" The grandmotherly-like woman shouted.

_**"Do not move or force will be used to restrain you!"**_

"You've got to be joking." Goldie Locks whispered, dropping her cup of tea. Now, really, this was getting too much. Here she was, trying to spend a nice afternoon with two old friends and in come the police!_ Story of my life…_ "Beatrice, have you been selling illegal spells again?"

"What? Me? Of course not!"

"Okay." Goldie said. "Just checking."

And she turned and ran, leaving Beatrice and Millicent to the mercy of the Royal Society's goons. She was almost to the edge of the Forest of Clichés when someone grabbed her around the middle, practically hoisting her off her feet. "Oi! Put me down, you big ape!"

Donkey Kong just scratched his head and dropped her none-too-softly on the ground.

Goldie landed in a heap, her shirt bearing the slogan _I'm Just Here to Make Up Numbers _over her face. Almost fearfully she pulled the cloth back down, dreading what she would see.

Standing around her were the toughest-looking Fictional Characters that she had ever seen. She gulped.

A young man with a blue tint to his fringe was the first to speak. "Goldie Locks? Come with me if you want to live."

* * *

Goldie Locks sipped her coffee as Teddy Lupin lead the way through the crowd of people flocking around the doors of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fictional Characters. The young wizard explained to Goldie that recently more and more cannon characters had been seeking Society protection from Fandom Abuse, but as the Sues got cleverer, the Society had trouble keeping up.

Fandom Abuse came in many kinds but there were two most common. The first was I'm-completely-obsessed-with-you-let-me-have-your-babies abuse, and then there was I-hate-you-with-the-fiery-passion-of-a-thousand-suns-I-hope-you-spend-an-eternity-in-hell-you-stupid-skank-and/or-dick. Either way the pendulum swung, the fictional character in question was often traumatised for life.

There were many famous faces that Goldie recognised straight away, and others that she didn't. In fact, almost all the fictional characters she saw wearing the Royal Society uniform were people she could hardly recognise. They were the type you had to squint at for a moment or two before going _I remember you…!_

Teddy saw her watching. "The Royal Society tries to employ characters that have really no appealing traits about them and are therefore are less fannonised. See, over there? There's the Cheese Guy from series seven of _Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, _that's the Nameless Evil Nazi that was killed off in the first _Indiana Jones _movie, and over there's Prop Alien Character #2 from the Cantina scene in _Star Wars._"

"That's why you're here." He continued. "You're a complete Non-Entity."

"I was very lucky to get a place." Teddy said. "Since my parents are so famous, even though I didn't even have _one lousy line to say _in the Lore, that was enough to get the Fan Domain excited." His grimace held the weight of experience. "I didn't even get to do a walk-on. It was just everyone else standing around _talking_ about me."

Goldie gave a low whistle. "Must be tough."

"You have _no _idea."

Teddy held open the door for her and she walked inside, feeling uneasy. Once in the reception area she noticed a group of characters huddled together in the corner and pointed at them. "Who are they?" She asked, not liking how they looked, all wrapped up in black cloaks and jackets, with crossbows secured to their backs and swords by their sides.

"They're the Errors." Her guide replied.

"Don't you mean Aurors?"

"Don't be daft. We haven't needed Aurors since Lord Voldemort came seeking Society protection from Fandom Abuse." Teddy scoffed. "No, _Errors_. Or Error Tactical Response One, if you prefer. They hunt the Miscasts. You see, there are some Errors that are mostly benign, such as yourself."

"Such as." Goldie stuffed a silver chain in her pocket that she had slipped off some woman's wrist.

"However, there are the more dangerous Errors that form packs like wild animals and have mutated greatly past their original form. They can't be allowed into Fiction City, or-"

"Oh, oh, let me guess, let me guess. Death and destruction to all?"

"How did you know?"

"It always is." She replied. "So, what do you want me for?"

"Someone else wants to explain the specifics of the case to you."

"The Big Boss, huzzah." Goldie said, eyebrows raised. The fictional characters she was seeing weren't dazzling her much anymore, the many bright and different colours of the fandoms having mixed together to form an unappetising shade of brown.

The two of them continued to walk down the long, steel hall. The Error craned her head this way and that, trying to get some sort of sense of direction, but the structure had more twists and turns than a rabbit warren. She could see a door on her left marked _James Bond (Re)Training Centre _and another just next to it proclaiming _Doctors' Research, _which she expected to be a library of sorts, but was instead a whole room dedicated to, you guessed it, the many and varying research projects of all the regenerations of Doctor Who.

"Gentlemen." Teddy said, sticking his head around the door. "How are we going?"

"Terrible." A man with curly hair and a frightful, psychodelic fit-inducing coat replied angrily. "The Sueimatic is just not tracking properly, no matter what I do."

"If I've told you before, I've told you a thousand times. Possibly more." A silvery haired man in a frock coat stroked his chin. "You _must _reverse the polarity of the neutron flow."

"How many times, that is _not _the cure-all for every problem in the Universe!"

"Certainly not any of his."

"I wonder if he's tried?"

"Prune juice works well."

"I don't think any one of me needed to know that!"

"Don't get snappy with me, you young scamp. I never would have made it to nine hundred years if I never knew my stuff."

"You didn't, you senile old fool. _He _did."

"Hi."

"He's me. So therefore I did."

"Now, everyone. Just take a deep breath. Anyone for a jelly baby?"

"Oh, for Omega's sake, would you _stop _with the jelly babies already?"

"This is what you, me, whatever, can do with those lollies!"

"This is confusing and making my head hurt." Goldie rubbed her temples. Teddy took her by the elbow and led her away just as one Doctor in a floppy hat started using his scarf in a very inappropriate way to throttle another Doctor wearing a cricket uniform with a lettuce leaf pinned on the collar as a third Doctor looking relatively normal in a scuffed leather jacket offered a bag of sweets to another Doctor in a pinstriped suit who sat back to watch as two other Doctors started sword-fighting with their Sonic Screwdrivers, the little devices sounding an awful lot like light sabres.

"Most of our Anti-Sue devices are products of their workshop. Brilliant men. Geniuses." Teddy said. "They're all completely bonkers, though."

"Kind of like Albus Dumbledore?" Goldie asked slyly.

He sighed. "Dumbledore used to be our prime agent. Sort of a geriatric 007. But he just hasn't been the same since he came out..."

_To be continued…_


	5. Nice to Meet You, Now Die

"_You're taller than I expected."_

"_I get that a lot."_

"_Miss Locks, you have been brought here because of a matter of Fiction City security-"_

"_Do you work out? You must work out."_

"_-the whole of Make-Believe Land is relying on you to-"_

"_You mind? We're having a conversation here."_

"_Ah, I do what I can, but, y'know, full time job, not much time to get down to the gym. What I really need is something to sink my claws into."_

"_And you're thinking you're going to do that on a bunch of Mary Sues?"_

"_What else are they good for, really?"_

"_That's a little harsh, isn't it?"_

"_This is war, Miss Locks."_

Goldie Locks didn't like the plan then, and she sure didn't like the plan any more now.

There was a sign above the door that pretty much summed up the situation perfectly.

_Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here. _

_Please Observe Formal Dress Code At All Times._

"Okay, so that Mary Sue you've got locked up in the basement like a lab rat is going to escape. You've got it all engineered so she'll be certain that she got out herself and wont suspect anything. I'm with you so far. I think you're asking for it, but I'm with you. And then you're going to send your agents in to follow her back to the hive, and your undercover man is going to befriend the True Sue, whereby he or she will be able to deflect the Sue's defences and the Society will be able to kill her before she kills you."

"You hit it on the head, blondie."

"Right. And me and the magic man over there were the best people you could come up with?"

The mutant cocked his head to the side, thinking. "It sounds pretty pathetic when you put it like that." He agreed. "And if we had more time we'd go in firing on all cylinders, but you two are, regrettably, the best we can come up with at short notice."

"Whoopee." She said, as Teddy Lupin's face grew stern. He shot her a _shut up _look. "And another thing."

"Yes?"

"Do I really have to wear this clown suit?"

The clown suit in question was really a multi-layered concoction of a gown made of the softest and shimmeriest materials that routinely changed colour depending on how she was standing, festooned with lace and ribbon and gauze up to the point that poor Goldie could hardly walk. Somehow it even managed to cling to curves she didn't have.

And the shoes! They were so high they gave her vertigo. She'd put them on an hour ago and the stiletto heels had punched twin holes through the dressing room floor and into the ceiling of the room below.

She had slipped them off again and tiptoed quietly from the room, hoping no one would notice.

"It looks good on you."

"I feel like I should be charging by the hour." Goldie said sourly.

Wolverine laughed uproariously while Teddy stood by his shoulder, looking more gangly and awkward than usual.

Goldie held up her hand. "One more question." She asked. "How do we get in? From what I've heard of the Fan Domain, they've got all these… Discrepancy Detectors and Fiction Fracturers and these outrageous toll booths for out-of-fandom tourists. Does the Society reimburse for traffic fines?"

"Only if you keep your ticket." Wolverine said. "And we have got a plan to get you and Magic Man into the Fan Domain." The door in front of the three of them slid open with a sigh.

"Genuine People Personality?" Goldie guessed.

"There's only so much work going around for GPP engineered robots since that unstable flux in the improbability meter caused the Known Universe to wobble to the left and looped out of existence the entire Douglas Adams galaxy. Funnily enough, the anomaly left the rest of the star system untouched."

"At odds of 1,300,2564,9657,559:1, against." Teddy deadpanned.

"Good morning, Marvin."

"Morning? Good? The only good morning is one that starts in the afternoon." The android sadly shook his head as he shuffled by. "A death to all mornings, I say."

"I'm a little like that myself before coffee." Goldie commented.

"Miss Locks, these people are the ones that enable us to resist and combat the Sues. These are the people who risk their lives to bring us up-to-date information about the activities of the True Sue. I'd like you to meet the folk of the Advanced Research and Scientific Exploration unit."

Goldie blinked, glancing up at the black, white and red coat of arms stencilled onto the opposite wall, underneath the rows and rows of computer terminals. _ARSE._

"Methinks you need to fire someone in your acronym department." She said shrewdly.

"_This stinks."_

"_You think you're having a hard time? I haven't been paid overtime since the Harry Potter lore reached capacity and I was listed in _Top 20 Child Stars: Where Are they Now?_"_

"_You were on the _Top 20_? Did they get nasty pictures of you falling out of nightclubs with questionable substances in your nostrils followed by a quickie Vegas wedding?"_

_He just gave her a look._

"_Put these in." A set of contact lenses, blue and sparkly._

"_What are they?"_

"_Level Two Anti-Sue filters."_

"_In English?"_

"_Slip them into your eye and they'll protect you from most of the abomination's psychic attack."_

"_Normal people's English?"_

"They're contact lenses that will stop your head from going ker-flooey when you look at a Mary Sue."

"_Why didn't you say so in the first place?"_

"The people of A.R.S.E are responsible for the gathering of all know data on the Mary Sues."

"Really? How do they do that? Don't the Sues have people monitoring everyone who enters the Fan Domain? What about the glomping and the de-characterising and the Suificating?"

"Good questions all." The voice was female and British. Very posh sounding. Goldie turned around. "It wholly depends on your popularity among the erstwhile Sues. If you happen to have the luck of being a TDC, chances are you can go under the radar."

"What's a TDC?"

"Truly Despised Character." She said. "As you may have noticed, there are a few of us around."

"No, really? And I thought that public stoning on the lawn was just for show." There was a nametag on the woman's shirt, and Goldie squinted at it.

"Talbot? _Bela_ Talbot? Hold on, I read the papers. I keep up with the news. You're supposed to be in Hell, your soul burning for all eternity!"

"There's always a loophole, sweetie." She said. "I was written without a soul."

"Neat."

"Miss Talbot is the head of the Tactical Assistance Retrieval Team." Wolverine said. "Her and her squad go behind enemy lines almost daily to retrieve information on the True Sue's attack plans."

"Attack plans?" Goldie squeaked. "No one told me anything about an attack! How? When? Where?"

"According to information gathered," Bela Talbot said. "Approximately 48 hours from now the True Sue and her supporters will storm the gates of Fiction City. We have reason to believe that the Sue has been developing something, some sort of weapon that will give her the upper hand over the Society, but all our agents have been neutralised before reaching Ground Zero."

"And what am I supposed to do? Hold her coat?"

"You get yourself in. Get yourself close to the Sue."

"And then what? I'm an Error, not a mutant, or a magician, or an ARSE technician." Goldie said. "How do I stop a war?"

"You don't." Wolverine said. "That's where your secondary mission kicks in. Once you have gained the True Sue's trust, you and Lupin will explore the Sue's complex and locate Dean Winchester. He's been in the Sue's complex for four months now; he's bound to have seen the weapon and picked up on a few things. Once you find the weapon, sabotage it some way and get word back to the Society. We'll take it from there."

"But what if he's been de-characterised?"

Bela pressed a small device into her hand. It was maybe an inch round, and it looked like a brass button.

"What's this? Some sort of hight tech characterisation ray? A mind probe?"

"It's a novelty hand-held shock button."

"Oh."

"It will deliver an electrical spark to the area of the brain that is made dormant during the process of De-Characterisation, and should cause the 'real' Dean Winchester to wake up without any of the Mary Sues realising that he's no longer their man-whore." Bela finished. "You see that adhesive side? It will stick to your hand and assume the colour and shape of your palm. Totally invisible if you don't know it's there."

"I don't like this plan."

"Bela, tell the kids how you're gonna get them into the Fan Domain." Wolverine instructed.

There were ancient sewer structures running underneath the whole of Make-Believe Land, remnants from the olden days when Fiction City and the Fan Domain stood harmoniously side by side. The passages had been mystically sealed by a powerful witch called Willow Rosenberg many years ago when the first of the fighting began to break out.

"This is where we must leave you. Good luck."

Wait!_ Goldie wanted to scream out. _What do I do now?

_Teddy began to change as she watched, and Goldie was suddenly extremely glad that she didn't have lunch. His face elongated and grew hairy, his arms stretched to reach the ground. His yellow fangs were sharp and pointed._

"_Wow." She said. "I knew you could change shape and all, but I didn't know you could do animals as well."_

"_Neither did I." Teddy said with some surprise. It was strange to hear Teddy's clipped, upper-middle-class British vowels coming out of the seven foot, shaggy werewolf. "I was actually trying to change into my Uncle Milton. There's probably some explanation. Probably minor Sueification." He looked at his hairy hands._

"_Or it could be genetic."_

"_Or it could be that." He said. "Come on, Locks."_

"_Right behind you, Chewbacca."_

They had emerged into artificial sunlight. Goldie held up a hand to shield her eyes. After she had adjusted, she stared around herself in wonder. "It's beautiful." She gasped.

"Keep it together." Teddy growled low to her. "The outside is just an illusion. We need you lucid so we can locate the weapon and this Dean Winchester."

"Do you have to ruin everything for me?" Goldie hissed back. "This morning I was just an ordinary ex-con. I haven't been as far as the River MacGuffin."

Teddy sighed.

Goldie hefted her skirts and began to make her way to the centre of the Fan Domain, Teddy in his wolf form lumbering along beside her. Everyone they passed was so beautiful, but thankfully none of them looked at the dwarf and the werewolf.

"I didn't ask before." She said. "What's a minor Suification?"

"Well, it's when abilities you never naturally had before suddenly manifest themselves. Some Mary Sue somewhere probably thought since my father is a werewolf, I would therefore possess the ability to shape shift into one myself. As I get closer to the Sues' centre of power, established rules are gradually swapped for the Fandom rules."

"Oh my God, how do you manage to stay sane?"

"It's a stretch at times." Teddy answered. "Look." He pointed with one dangerous-looking claw. "The palace of the True Sue."

Goldie looked up at the whirring contraptions and the cold steel of the building. Sharp edges reached to the sky, piercing the clouds. The palace was the only blemish on an otherwise flawless landscape. "Teddy?"

"Strange." The Englishman said. "Normally the palace is cloaked in an illusion and shielded to avoid detection-"

"Teddy!" Goldie screamed as she was grabbed from behind and hoisted off the ground. "Teddy!" She shouted out again as two big, burly, and very attractive men jumped forward, cattle prods in hand.

Teddy roared out as two separate jolts of electricity ached up his body. With his massive paws, he hit out at his attackers, but more kept coming at him, until he was driven under the weight of numbers. Within minutes, he had changed back into his true form, and was still. Too still.

"Teddy? Lupin, look at me!" Goldie demanded. But there was no reaction. The wizard was out cold.

"You know what to do with them." The voice was female and high and honeyed. "When the De-Characterisation has been completed, the She who Must Be Obeyed wishes to see them both. Tonight Fiction City will crumble under the might that is Mary Sue!"

There rose a great cheer around them, but Goldie Locks ignored it. "Oh no." She said.

They were waiting for us.

We've been betrayed.


	6. Viva la Revolution?

_**AN: Long chapter here. Goldie and Teddy have to escape from the Mary Sues.**_

He tried to get his thoughts in order, but for some reason his mind would not heed his demands and come together to form coherent thoughts.

He was floating.

He couldn't remember his name. He couldn't remember why he had come here. All he could recall was a moment of pain, and this. This never-ending bliss.

The woman was back. She was amazingly beautiful with the most gorgeous violet eyes. He smiled dreamily as she sat down opposite him, a clipboard in her hands. "Good morning, Teddy." She chirped cheerfully. "I trust you are feeling much better today?"

"Much." Teddy said distantly. He was away, far away, high as a kite. It reminded him of when he and his friends burnt the Dragonsblood Root, during his last year of… last year of… what was the name of that place again?

At his frown of concentration, the Mary Sue made a note on her clipboard. "Good. Very good." She murmured. "Now." She said. Her tone became serious. "What are the Royal Society's plans? When are they going to attack?"

"Who? I don't…"

"Try to remember."

'_How is it progressing?' _The voice chirped in her ear.

"Not good enough." The Mary Sue said. "He's been De-Characterised only enough that he should still retain vestiges of his Cannon personality, but he's not responding to stimuli."

'_They've discovered a way to get past the OOC. Clever little Cannons.' _The Mysterious Disembodied Voice (hereafter known as MDV) said. The Mary Sue imagined the MDV stroking her extremely attractive chin.

"What are your orders, ma'am?"

'_Try the Original Character. She'll talk once she has been transformed. All hail the True Sue.'_

"True Sue." Teddy's eyebrows knitted. "I remember… we're fighting the True Sue. God, I'm not supposed to be here. I've got to get out." He started to rise on wobbly legs. The Mary Sue sprung up, and with unnatural strength, she pushed him back before pulling out a syringe filled with clear liquid and injecting it into Teddy's neck.

The wizard went limp.

"What about Lupin?" She asked worriedly.

'_Send him to the Re-education Institution.' _MDV demanded.

"Oh, but-"

'_Do you dare disobey me?"_

The Mary Sue hung her head. "No, ma'am. My loyalty is to the True Sue. All hail the League of Mary Sue." This was said with just a hint of sadness.

* * *

Her head was pounding like she'd just gone head-to-head with Peter Rabbit in a drinking competition. She rolled over.

And landed on the floor with a thump.

"Dammit." She cursed, rising from the floor. Aside from a splitting headache, there seemed to be no ill effects from her capture by the Sues. She had expected copious amounts of pain, and then a bit of throbbing, and on top of that, a bit of stinging. But in fact, she felt good.

Too good.

Her nose was itching. Without thought, she reached up to scratch.

And then it hit her.

Eyes crossed, Goldie stared at her nose, the unsightly pug that was squashed ever-so-slightly to the side of her face.

However the nose that was presently on her face wasn't her own.

_Hell._

Goldie tore the blankets from her body and practically pounced on the mirror that stood in the corner of the room. She took one look.

And screamed.

"Holy Mother of Merlin! I'm a Mary Sue!"

Through interlaced fingers, she peered out at her reflection. Her NEW reflection. The thick, matted yellow locks that she had inherited from her late mother were gone, replaced by golden tresses. Her murky, swamp-coloured eyes were now a clear, vibrant green. The whole shape of her face had changed and instead of just being short, she was what would be classified as _petite. _She suddenly had an unnatural craving for leather and lace.

_I'm a mutant!_

Slowly turning around, she nervously appraised herself from all angles. Nothing of the old, slightly-out-of-shape, knobbly-kneed and pug-nosed Goldie Locks had escaped the Sueification. What now stood cringing in front of the mirror was Goldie Locks Mark II.

_Though not all of it was bad…_

"Sweet Authors above. I could bounce a nickel off that ass." She exclaimed in surprise. "Alright, Locks, get a hold of yourself." She peered around the room. It certainly didn't look like a cell, with the antique furnishings and the bunny wallpaper. "I get it." She said. _When an Original Character is Sueified, they're supposed to go over to the dark side straight away._

"Why not me?" Goldie murmured. In her moment of contemplation, she clasped her hands together.

"Ow! Motherf-" She looked down at her palm. She was still wearing the adhesive brain-zapper that Bela Talbot had given her. _The Sues never realised it was there!_ She thought joyfully. _I must have zapped myself while I was asleep!_

"Now, things to do: Find Teddy, find Winchester, befriend the True Sue, destroy the weapon, neutralise the traitor and haul ass out of under an army of Mary Sues while pretending at the same time to be working on their side." Goldie sat heavily down on the bed. _And it's all up to you, now. _She tugged painfully at her curls.

"We're all gonna _die_."

There was a knock on the door and Goldie leapt to her feet. _Compose yourself. Find your inner silence._ She breathed out slowly. _Be Mary Sue. You_ are _Mary Sue._

The doors swung open and in stepped a woman with long, dark hair and keen eyes. There was a gun at her hip and Goldie silently told herself to get a grip. "Hello." She said, and her voice was husky like a wet cloth being dragged over gravel, but somehow still oh-so sexy. "Welcome to the League of Mary Sue, Goldie Locks. Welcome, Sister."

"How do you know my name?"

"Your… friend was very willing to share information with us when certain… methods were undertaken."

Goldie wanted to scream _You monsters! What have you done with him?! _but knew without a doubt that it would blow her cover. _Oh God, what do I say now? Think like a Sue, think like a Sue, think like a Sue._

_I've got to get to Teddy._

"I am honoured that I was chosen to bear the title of Mary Sue." Goldie responded gravely, although she was shaking inside. The answer seemed to please the other Sue, who broke into a relaxed smile.

"I am Livida of the East Sues." She said. "Formerly of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Fandom."

"You're an original character too? _Were _an original character?" Goldie blurted before thinking.

"Once. I was taken from my village at the junction of Writer's Block and Crack!Fic before being introduced to the bliss that is Mary Sue." She said. "It's not all bad being a Sue. I'm now smokin' hot." She joked. Goldie smiled a little._ She doesn't seem so bad… _"I'll give you a moment to get dressed, and then the True Sue wishes to speak with you."

"Yes."

Livida closed the door behind herself and Goldie sagged. _Get dressed. _She wandered over to the grand wardrobe and threw open the doors. Old Goldie would have taken one look at the outfits and wrinkled up her nose. Goldie 2.0 *sqee*-d inside. _Ooh! Prada! _

Even though her Mary Sue voice urged her to do herself up like a ten-dollar hooker, Goldie pulled on the most no-nonsense and serviceable outfit she could find, a fitted black suit and a red top that showed off her suddenly visible cleavage. Livida was easy, but could Goldie really fool the True Sue? She paced the length of the room for a moment, wringing her hands, before smoothing her hair and walking into the hallway.

"I'm ready." She informed Livida.

The Mary Sue led her into the complex. Half of Goldie's brain was squealing with delight at the absolute abundance of hot men, and the other half was vainly trying to put some sort of leash on her hormones. It was quite a new experience for Goldie, because, let's face it, she was never exactly a guy-magnet. If a cute guy even looked at her, Old Goldie would have gone bright red, swallowed her tongue, and made an excuse to vamoose.

New Goldie oozed confidence with every step.

She didn't like it. She had become one of the women that her and her friends used to jeer at down the street when they were all in highschool.

_They'll find a way to make me normal again. They will. I've just got to keep it together for a bit longer._

More doors. Larger and more imposing this time. Goldie raised an eyebrow. _Feelings of inadequacies, yes? _Behind that door was the largest room that Goldie had ever seen, _way_ trumping anything there had been at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fictional Characters. At the far end of the room, mounted on a stone plinth was a gigantic winged chair, like a throne. Goldie gaped.

"Marvellous, isn't it?"

Goldie Locks looked around for the mysterious disembodied voice. "Welcome, Goldie Locks, into the heart of the Fan Domain."

_Say something, you twit._

"I am privileged that I have been shown this great majesty of the Fan Domain." She managed to get out.

"Goldie Locks, I am the True Sue." The MDV continued. "And I welcome you to the fold. Welcome, little sister."

"Thank you?"

Livida came into the room, and clasped her hands neatly behind her back. Not a hair was out of place and her complexion was so rosy and perfect that she did not require makeup.

"Livida, there were no incidents?"

"No, ma'am." Livida said. "All tests indicate that the primary personality has been erased."

That was when Goldie's heart really began to pound.

"As you may suspect, you have been shown into my inner sanctum for a reason." The MDV continued. "I need you to assist me in an endeavour."

_Gold._

"I will do my best." Goldie said guardedly.

"I know that you were sent here by the Royal Society." The voice said. "You and that Cannon character. You will tell me of what they were planning. When do they intend to attack my fortress?"

_Tread carefully, Goldie. _"My life belongs to the True Sue and the League of Mary Sue." Goldie said. "However, before I give you such information, I wish to negotiate. I want something from you." _Easy, girl. Don't get too forward._

"Give me back Teddy Lupin, and all I know will be yours."

"Hm." The voice demurred. "You are still the extortionist, I see."

"He is… a friend of mine."

"A friend?"

"A _good _friend. He has quite a nice figure."

The True Sue laughed. "Indeed, Little Sister, indeed. You are truly one of us. Livida,"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Fetch me the boy. I want him unscathed." The voice instructed. "If our Goldie Locks wants the wizard, she can have the wizard. Now, what have you to tell me, Little Sister?"

"Not until I have Teddy with me." Goldie replied defiantly. For a moment she thought she might have blown it, until the True Sue replied.

"A good Sue is a persistent Sue. You have a deal, small one."

* * *

Goldie swallowed her panic, and walked along like this was an everyday occurrence for her. Livida was leading the way through the asylum, and the two of them were being followed by the dark, brooding jailer who once used to be an Original Character in the Capitol before he was captured by the League of Mary Sue and Suified.

"This way."

Goldie was ushered into a padded cell, Livida behind her. Teddy Lupin was curled into a ball in the corner furthest away from the door, head down and arms wrapped around his knees. His hair, normally a bright and cheery turquoise, had given way to a dull brown.

"What have they done to you?" Goldie whispered as she sank down on her knees beside him. "Is re-education code for psychological torture?" She demanded of Livida. The Mary Sue shrugged.

"It is the way the True Sue orders us to re-educate troublesome Cannons into the glory of being Sue." But even she did not sound all that certain. "I do think it gets cruel. It's like beating a puppy. How is a puppy supposed to know what it is doing wrong?"

Goldie felt her face grow red and she bit off an angry retort. She touched her palm. The electro-shock buzzer was still there. Over the last half-hour she had checked the adhesive on the device, but it seemed determined to stay on her hand. Waiting for one of these moments.

"Teddy? Teddy, it's me, Goldie Locks. That vagabond you picked up in the shire of Fairy Tales?"

No response. Goldie slid her hand up the side of his face, and gently pressed her palm against his skin. Through her hand she could feel the jolt of electricity, but it was too small an exchange for Livida to have noticed anything.

After the initial shock, slowly the wizard stopped trembling. "Goldie?" He whispered. "You look like hell."

"Nice to see you again, Magic Man." Goldie gave him a quick hug. "Is that a wand in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" She hissed by his ear. "Shut up and follow my lead."

"He is yours if you want him." The jailer offered. Teddy stiffened.

"Sure." Goldie said casually. "Who wouldn't want their own insanely famous boy-toy that can change _any_ part of his anatomy?" She quirked her eyebrows in a _you know what I mean_ gesture. Teddy's face darkened, and she leaned in close. "Kiss me." She hissed.

"What?"

"Kiss me or they'll know you're normal again."

"I have a girlfriend."

"I'll tell her you were under duress. Do it!"

And so the brave young wizard screwed his eyes shut and kissed the one woman he would have never dreamed about kissing in a million years.

Eventually Goldie Locks managed to get him back to her room, in a strictly non-sexual way (not that the other Mary Sues knew. Half of them were foaming at the mouth now Teddy Lupin was Goldie's 'property').

"I can't believe you _bought _me."

"Stop complaining. You could have been somebody's bitch right now." Goldie was flicking through a sheaf of papers she had stolen from the institution and had stuffed down her bra.

"You can't tell them the plan."

"I'm not. I'm going to stall."

"For what?"

"So you can find Winchester and the weapon." Goldie said. "I'll make it _sound _like the truth, because that's what I do best."

"I almost forgot you were a con-artist." He sniped.

"And I almost forgot you were a weenie." Goldie shot back.

"And these pants chafe." Teddy complained.

"Oh, good. Something _else _you can complain about." His companion said mildly. "Look, for the time being, we're safe. I, for want of a better word, own you. That means no one else is allowed to touch you or the True Sue gets right pissed, and me, we wont even _go _there." Goldie sucked in a breath. "Teddy?"

"Mmm?"

"Is there any way, any _conceivable _way, that the Society can make me normal again?" She sounded worried. "I mean, this look will work for undercover, but I don't want to be like this _forever_."

Teddy looked back at the Sueified Goldie Locks. His look said it all. "I'm sorry." He said simply. "There is no known cure for any character that has been Sueified."

Goldie's shoulders slumped. "I guess my old life's gone the way of the dodo, then."

"I really am sorry, you know."

"That's okay. I can go work for _Victoria's Secret, _or something." She replied.

"We could reseach for a cure, but that would effectively mean offering yourself as a human guinea pig, and quite frankly, a lot of the professors they have working at the Society I wouldn't trust near me with a needle-"

"Oh my God."

"Yeah, sometimes they even miss your vein altogether and your arm's numb for a week."

"No, no. Look at this." Goldie offered him the papers she had stolen. On one was a brain wave activity graph.

"What am I looking at?"

"My Sueification report. Something Livida said when I was presented to the True Sue wasn't right, so I swiped these. She said that the Sueification had destroyed my primary personality, which is, of course, the Goldie that we all know and love."

Teddy snorted. "But look at this spike here. That's me. My personality. I – I was physically transformed, but…"

"Your mind didn't become Mary Sue-like." Teddy said. "That's-"

"Insane. I was deliberately left normal." Goldie finished. "And then Livida lied to the True Sue about it."

Teddy stroked his chin. "So the Mary Sues aren't following the True Sue's orders anymore." He said. "The question is: why?"


	7. The Time I lost a City in a Plothole

Here they were, just walking along the corridor. _Nothing to look at here, we're just two innocent civilians going for a stroll._

Goldie's hands were clasped neatly behind her back and Teddy was following a step behind, like he had learnt to do after seeing other OOC characters walking respectfully behind their Sue masters. Each time he saw a familiar face, or recognised a piece of Fiction that had been permanently torn away from their fandoms, he died a little inside.

Goldie glanced back as the wizard looked at his watch. It was gold and sparkly and had innumerable stars and moons floating around the face and she would have normally pinched it in a flash, even though she had no idea how to read the time off it.

Now she looked at it once and turned away, for the first time in her life suppressing her kleptomaniac urges. She told herself that it was probably a knock-off, and Teddy had already lost most of the value of the item by wearing it while working, meaning that the face and the band were cloudy and chipped.

"Where's Jack Bauer when you need him?" Goldie breathed. Teddy was frowning over his watch. It couldn't talk, unlike most wizarding things, but via the messages that popped up on the screen like ads for Viagra, it proceeded to tell him exactly how dead they both were.

_**Imminent annihilation: 24 hours.**_

**_Baby, you're screwed _good_._**

"Damn thing." He growled, pulling it off his wrist and stuffing it in his pocket. Maybe it was her imagination, but Goldie was certain that it screamed.

"Are you sure about this?" She asked Teddy. "The time wasted in there with the True Sue could be time spent looking for the weapon and this Winchester dude."

"Maybe, but you aren't the field agent." He replied. "I might pick up on some things that you miss, and we could discover what is happening with the Mary Sues."

"You don't trust me?" Goldie frowned. "I saved your pasty English butt plenty enough, didn't I?" Not long ago she would have jumped up and down with glee for being called untrustworthy, but ever since she had been drafted to this secret mission for the Society, she suddenly cared whet people thought of her. It was strange.

She had to remind herself that it was only yesterday morning she had been a petty criminal nabbed off the street.

Teddy frowned back. "That's got nothing to do with it." He said sternly. "I'm the trained field agent and I-"

"Oh, don't give me that bullshit. If this turns into that _'my toy is bigger than your toy' _macho crap, I'm totally gonna go medieval on your ass."

He scowled. "Why do you always have to be so – so –"

"Adorable?" Her smile was as sharp as a knife.

"Obdurate."

"You're obdurate." She snapped.

"Do you even know what that means?"

"It's a fancy word for 'stubborn' that stuck-up wiseasses like you use for the sole purpose of trying to win a lost argument by going 'do you even know what that means?'" She shot back, before thrusting a fist into the air. "She shoots, she scores!" Teddy sighed.

"I'm not ever going to win, am I?"

"No. Bloody. Way." Goldie said. "Besides, you stick out like a sore thumb."

"I do not!"

"You're a tall bloke with blue hair and a perchance for canines who regularly changes his appearance from one flamboyancy to the next. For the best undercover agent at the Society, so far I'm not impressed." She continued. "You're too smart to play dumb and not smart enough to shut the hell up and stand in the corner while the big kids do the work."

"So you're saying I should just let you do everything?"

"I'm saying you can just get out of my hair and let me do what you brought me here for!" Goldie rubbed at her temples. "I don't _need_ this! Because of you people, I'm a freak. Because of you people, my life can't go back the way it used to be. My life is ruined!"

"You mean you _liked_ being a thief?"

She spun around and grabbed hold of his shirt, hauling him down until they were nose-to-nose. She smiled dangerously. "Living on the edge, it's _all _it's cracked up to be. You should try it sometimes, Tinkerbell."

Teddy recognised her tone, and the way she had reverted to calling him every name under the sun _but _his own. He was aware of a group of Mary Sues looking at them and whispering to each other. "I've had _quite_ enough of living on the edge, Miss Locks." He said coldly. "In fact, as soon as I have done my part in completing this mission, I am _out_ of the Society, I am _out_ of Fiction City. And I _never_ want to see your face as long as I exist in the realms of impossibility."

"Then we finally agree on something." Goldie Locks agreed frostily. She released him and angrily spun forward, taking a step-

Into nowhere.

"Ahhh!"

Down, down, down. Advance, acute, _extreme _motion sickness. Like being in the front row of the theatre at the opening of Starwars XXXIV. Covering mouth with hand. "I'm gonna puke."

"No you're not!" Teddy retorted, alarmed.

Down, down, down. Screaming suddenly lost it's novelty. Goldie folded her arms and started to whistle.

"Don't do that."

"Why not?"

"Just – don't."

And then there was land. Goldie barely had time to shout 'look!' before her and her companion were deposited on the unforgiving ground.

"Yow!" Teddy yelped, bending his arm back the other way. Goldie had squeezed her eyes shut, and had her hands over her ears. "Think of a happy place, think of a happy place, think of a happy place…" She opened her eyes a crack. "Are we alive?"

His expression stoic, the young wizard reached over and pinched her arm.

"Ow!" She swatted his hand away. "Okay! I get it!" She looked around herself. She couldn't see anything besides a great pit, a hole in the ground. Shading her eyes, she stared up at the pinpoint of light far above them. "What the hell did we just fall into?"

Teddy wordlessly pointed at a sign that was hung neatly on the rock face.

_**Danger Ahead.**_

_**Beware of Plothole.**_

"Huh." Goldie scratched her head. "I suppose I should have expected that."

"Lumos." The wizard muttered over his wand, and the two of them watched as the tip lit up and they could suddenly see again.

"Does that thing ever run out of batteries?" She asked curiously.

"I stick it on the recharger at night." He replied sarcastically. As Teddy shone the light around, Goldie realised that they weren't actually in a pit at all, but a great cavern.

"What now?"

He shrugged, and then shone the wand around himself in a wide arc. There were several offshoots leading out of the cavern, many dripping with ooze. "Well, we can't go up, so…"

"Eenie meenie miney mo?" Goldie pointed at the largest opening. "After you."

The little typo scrambled to follow the long-legged Englishman across the rocks. Soon she was completely out of breath, but Teddy seemed rapt about their situation. His eyes were bright as he rambled on. Goldie lent on her knees to get her breath back and listened to what he was saying.

"My godfather used to tell me stories about places like these. Sudden sinkholes in the very fabric of a story. A large one can cause the writing to loose it's integrity and structure and disintegrate in on itself. It's said that time and logic ceases to exist in one." He said. "There have even been whole _civilizations _that have vanished into plotholes, never to be seen again."

"You are such a _liar_."

"I swear on my grandmother's grave, should something horrendous happen to her." He grinned at her. "Come on, Goldie, this is fun."

"_Fun_, he says. When you've finished geeking out, care to share how we get back _out_ of this plothole?" She asked. "I mean, when all these civilisations that have been lost over the years have never been seen or heard from again, how do we get back?"

His smile didn't falter. "Therein lies the problem."

"I hate you so much right now. I don't want to spend the last years of my life with a hyperactive wizard in a hole in the ground where no one will ever know what became of me,"

"Oh woe,"

"Believe me, no fun." Goldie said. "My mum was an elf, so I'm gonna have about five hundred more years on you."

"I wouldn't be so sure. Modern wizards have been known to live into the hundreds."

"Oh, fantastic." She said brightly. "So I can grow old with a man I'm pretty sure is an idiot. It'll be just like if we were married." She could tell by his look that he wasn't amused.

"Look," He began. "Just because you-"

Someone cleared their throat behind them in the darkness. A neat, little _heh hem _to get their attention. "Wand, wand, wand." Goldie said under her breath, and after a moment Teddy realised what she was on about and raised his weapon toward the source of the noise. There was a cloaked person standing there, it's arms folded, waiting patiently for Goldie Locks and Teddy Lupin to finish their game.

The person looked the two of them over, and what he saw didn't impress him that much. "Hi?" Goldie gave a little wave, knowing full well that their cover had probably been blown to smithereens.

The figure cocked his head to the side.

"Come with me if you want to live."

A good hour down the gurgler. The hands on Teddy's watch had not moved an inch, proving his theory about time being meaningless in the void of a plothole.

"Are we there yet?"

"We are not."

Goldie swore she could hear chanting.

When the Mysterious Robed Figure had appeared, it had been intimidating and a trifle exciting. Now it was just getting boring. And tiring. Despite Goldie's metamorphosis into a Mary Sue, her legs were still short, therefore she had to take three steps to every one of the Mysterious Robed Figure and Teddy the Beanstalk. That drove to make her a grouchy little Error.

"Look, buddy, could you at least tell us where you're taking us?"

"Somewhere where they will never find us." The Mysterious Robed Figure said. "A place cloaked in mystery, and shrouded in secrecy."

"That must be hard to find when you're drunk."

"It has been surrounded by riddles and myth for centuries, a place lost to the world and found again in time for the rising against the True Sue. We are going to the Lost City."

Teddy gasped. "Not _the_ Lost City?"

"Be kind to the newbie. What's the lost city?" Goldie asked. "You'd have to be pretty careless to lose a whole city, I reckon."

"Do you remember how I was telling you about how there were whole civilisations that got swallowed up by Plotholes?" Teddy said. "Well, the Lost City was the first. No one ever found out what happened to it. One day it just didn't exist anymore."

"Hence, _lost_." Goldie said.

"We were punished for our stupidity." The Mysterious Robed Figure said. "Our city simply could not handle that much contradiction and irrational perfection, so therefore we were sent hurtling to our doom down the pit and given an eternity to realise our mistakes so that we may help others to rise against the tyranny and take back their normality."

And Goldie realised. "This Lost City? You're all Mary Sues, weren't you? You're rebelling against the True Sue."

"Once a Mary Sue was just another character." He said. "A necessary evil. Once there were no Mary Sues, just really annoying characters that were otherwise therefore needed to advance the plot. But now, here they are, corrupting plot, twisting characters, violating the very heart and soul of Fiction. The Sue occupation _must_ end." The Mysterious Robed Figure pushed his hood back over his head.

He was a she.

"Livida?" Goldie gasped, looking up at the Mary Sue.

Livida looked at them both plainly. She lookked Goldie and Teddy up and down.

"I know what you are." Livida said. "Or rather, what you are _not_. We need you, both of you. The True Sue attacks tonight, and she must be stopped. The tyranny of Sue ends, and her army _must_ be destroyed."

"You do realise you're talking about killing your own people?" There was mild horror in Teddy's voice.

"They are not _my _people." Livida flared at once. "_My _people belong to a little fandom out west, one so small that neither of you have probably heard of it. I want to go back there, Teddy Lupin. I want to sink back into obscurity. I want to do things the hard way. I want a challenge of practising over and over again before I get something right, and I want to feel that satisfaction. I want to meet the right guy who likes the me inside instead of being dazzled by my… assets."

"Livida, you know there's no way to revert a Sueification back to an original state, right?" Goldie asked guardedly.

"There is a way." The woman said, but did not embellish further. A tiny bubble of hope surfaced in Goldie's chest.

Teddy was puzzled. "I don't understand." He said.

"Wouldn't be the first time." Goldie muttered.

"-If you _are_ the… Resistance, why haven't anyone at the Society heard of you? We could have joined forces, and attacked together."

"If Goldie Locks had not been converted, would you have ever trusted a Mary Sue?"

He looked uncomfortable and glanced down at the ground. "No, I suppose not." He confessed.

"He's got a point, though." Goldie spoke up. "How come we haven't even heard rumours? I mean, you lot get tourists and things going through the Fan Domain every summer."

Livida met her eyes squarely. "You would have never believed us." She said.

"Livida, do you know anything about a weapon the True Sue is developing?" Goldie asked. "A weapon that could be dangerous to the whole of Fiction?"

The Anti-Mary Sue shook her head helplessly. "I have heard of it, but you probably know more than me." She confessed. "The True Sue holds her power by keeping all of her subjects carefully under control by not letting them know more than they need to." There was more than a little bitterness in her voice.

"What do you actually _do_? Being a resistance and everything."

Livida shrugged. "About what you'd expect. We try to save a few Cannon characters from OOC before smuggling them away. We sabotage Sueifications and recruit those people into the League." She replied. "He advised the War Council that drawing attention to ourselves by doing much more would probably be a bad idea until we have finalised our plans of attack."

"Who's _he_?" Teddy asked curiously.

"One we rescued from the OOC." Livida said proudly. "He set aside his hate for all things Mary Sue to help us in our struggle against the Ultimate Evil, and is now one of the most influential people on the War Council."

"Sounds like a neat bloke. Who is he?"

"A man called Dean Winchester."

* * *

"Welcome to the Lost City of Atlantias."

"Atlantis?"

"Atlant_ias_. With an 'A'."

The door was labelled _WC._

"We've come the back way, of course."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

"They're waiting for you." Livida said. "They've been waiting for this for a long time."

Goldie glanced at Teddy. "Follow the yellow brick road."


	8. I've got Bad News and Worse News

Even though it was apparent that somehow the plothole had effectively stopped time, Goldie was still doubtful about the effect it would have on logic until she walked into the War Council's chambers and the first thing she saw was a bloodhound typing away furiously on his laptop, muttering something all the while about the declining rates of shares.

"Sell, sell, I've got insider information that says Plot Points, Inc. is going down!" He was shouting into his Bluetooth, and then he noticed Goldie staring. "What are you looking at? Haven't you ever seen a dog work the share market before?" He barked at her.

"Not as such." She said carefully.

"This is Mervin." Livida said. "He used to work on the show _Family Guy_ before Plot Points, Inc. was dropped as the production house."

The bloodhound stared at Goldie and Teddy flatly, as if waiting for them to do something.

"Really? I don't remember seeing you anywhere on the show. Did you work with the other dog on the show, Brian?" Goldie asked, which turned out to be a mistake. The room went deathly quiet.

"_Brian,_ don't talk to me about _Brian_." The bloodhound snarled. "A week before the pilot aired I was dumped for that highbrow schmuck with the drinking problem and the weird fetishes. Artist integrity, ha! I spit on the studios that grind up the hopes and dreams of the little guys. Burn in Hell, Fox, burn slowly."

"Right." Livida said, backing away slowly. "It was good to see you again, Mervin, but we have to go… this way." She indicated with her hands and Goldie and Teddy crept behind the Mary Sue's back to get away from the antagonised hound.

Goldie could hear the sounds of a party going on. She tugged at Teddy's sleeve before scurrying off down the hall. Teddy made a pass at the back of her shirt, but only ended up grasping a few cashmere threads. He pulled a face and followed. _Really, they don't pay me enough for this._

"Damn it all, what the hell do you think you're doing?" He hissed when he caught up to her.

"Something's not right." She hissed back. "This is too easy. Mary Sues fighting Mary Sues? The whole of Suedom wants to stick the war and just go home and chill out? You're seriously telling me that you're buying that? This stinks. This stinks so much that I'm about to have a seizure."

"Stranger things have happened." Teddy offered.

"Oh, yeah? Name five."

Teddy raised an eyebrow, lost in thought for a moment before replying. "No. No, you are not sucking me into that sort of naming thing. No way."

"Can't think of anything, huh?"

"You know, instead of sneaking off and breaking things and getting _me _into trouble, you could just ask an impartial third party to explain the situation to you." Teddy said. "The Narrator would be happy to help."

"Yeah, I _could_, but I won't enjoy myself as much." Goldie flashed him a toothy grin. "Besides, the Narrator's an ass. All he does is talk in that big, melodramatic drone. He doesn't actually _do _anything, beside be another plot point."

Teddy rolled his eyes in a _why me_ gesture. "Any moment Livida will notice that we aren't waiting for her. How do we creep around without being caught?"

"I don't know. You're the wizard. Do a bit of hocus pocus or abracadabra or whatever you lot do." Goldie could tell by the way that Teddy's aristocratic nose wrinkled that he was rapidly loosing patience with her. But that was okay. Most people lost their patience with her eventually.

From a pocket in his trousers Teddy withdrew a small box, and from that box he pulled out a long gold chain. Goldie saw that there was a little hourglass hanging off the chain. Her inner kleptomaniac stood up and demanded attention.

Teddy took hold of the hourglass and knelt on one knee. "This is a Time Turner." He told her. His face was deathly serious. "Only a handful of agents are permitted to carry one."

"And you're one of those agents. Oh, how convenient." Goldie smirked. "I think somebody's been shopping at Plot Points, Inc. again. Someone steal his credit card."

He ignored the sarcasm. "Each turn of the hourglass is equivalent to going back roughly one hour each into the immediate past. Turn the glass enough times and you could in theory effectively return to the dawn of civilisation."

"Cool."

Teddy slapped her hands away. "This can change the future." He said. "If we encounter ourselves in the past or encounter someone who will know our future selves, we could damage the timeline irreversibly."

"Don't worry, Dad. I promise to read the instructions on the box and keep my arms and legs inside the moving vehicle at all times."

"This is not a joke." He snapped at her.

"Hey, if we use that, we could go back in time and warn our past selves that they're heading for an ambush."

"And therefore neither of us would know what we do now, thousands of innocent people will die when the Royal Society attacks, we'd have no access to the True Sue at all, and the two of us wouldn't even be having this conversation about going back in time."

Goldie blinked.

"Oh."

"Besides," Teddy carried on. "We would need to arrive at the exact moment that our past selves go back in time so that the time stream isn't damaged and the whole of creation doesn't collapse in on itself."

"You know, all I really understood out of all that was _go back in time_."

"Why do I even bother?" Teddy groaned. With no further thought, he flung the chain around both his and her necks. "What do you think?" He asked. "We'll go back while the past you and I are still imprisoned by the Sues, so we won't have to worry about running into ourselves. We'll have an extra day to search, but we have to be back at this very spot at the exact time our past selves go back in time."

"Whatever you say. You're the one driving this jalopy."

Teddy nodded briskly, punctuating his thoughts, and he began to turn the device, Goldie looking on. For a moment nothing happened. And then it was like a video where someone had pushed the rewind button. Goldie's mouth dropped open.

Strange threads weaved their way around her, and she realised that she was _seeing _the time stream, the timelines flowing around her. Without thinking, she reached out and pinched one of the threads. Somewhere there was an echoing scream, and Teddy glared at her. Blushing bright red, she stuffed her hands in her pockets.

The Time Stream was a strange thing. Blinking, Goldie stared out at the other beings riding the vortex alongside them. An old man with I-stuck-my-tongue-in-an-electric-socket-as-a-child hair and a young guy with a permanently irked out expression in a clapped-out DeLorean stared out at Goldie and Teddy as they drove past. A mean-looking Terminator sized them up as he walked by, and a man in a pinstriped suit and sneakers with a fishing rod in his hand waved cheerily at them from where he had parked his blue boxy spaceship over a small nebula, where the Salmon of Knowledge was known to spawn.

Finally the world stopped spinning, and Goldie's stomach stopped churning.

"Argh."

"The first ride can be a little rough." Teddy whispered. "I mean, if you have a weak constitution and all."

Goldie didn't trust herself to open her mouth, so she just glared.

He helped her off the floor. The two of them could hear Mervin tapping away, growling and yapping under his breath. Teddy put his fingers to his lips and crept forward. The two of them were almost at the door when Mervin went silent. Goldie tensed, certain that they had been made, but after a moment the dog began to warble a few bars of a song.

"_Ain't nothing but a hound dog, barking all the time-_"

The wizard crept by, and motioned for Goldie to follow. Goldie stpped out into the light, and then she noticed something out of the corner of her eye.

There was a drawing of a machine on Mervin's desk. A plan of some kind. She stared as it for a moment longer before reaching out to quickly bundle it in her shirt.

Once out the door, Goldie and Teddy leaned by the wall, side by side. "I thought we were made." Goldie whispered. "Doesn't that mutt ever leave?"

It was right at that moment that the door was flung open.

The duo could have stayed unnoticed, if they had stayed completely still and silent.

Unfortunately Teddy had been standing directly behind the door when it had been thrown open. Which meant that his nose quite audibly cracked against the wooden frame. Which meant that without thinking he let loose that one word that everybody knows is _guaranteed _to get you noticed wherever you say it.

Mervin stopped. Closed the door. Stared at Goldie and Teddy.

"What a gutter-trash vocabulary." Goldie Locks slowly raised a hand. "Hi?"

The dog looked at them up and down a moment longer. "Intruders!" He bellowed.

"Down, boy!" Goldie barked. Running on autopilot, she seized the Time Turner from Teddy's unresponsive hands, flung the chain around their necks, and began turning the hourglass.

"No!" Teddy shouted.

The next minute the two of them collapsed in the floor in a heap.

"Ow." By the time he managed to pry the hourglass from her hands, Mervin was gone. The hall was even more deserted than before, and the lights were out.

A tap was dripping somewhere.

Goldie pulled the chain from round her neck. "Well, that was anticlimactic." She said. "Where are we now?"

"Approximately nine hours until the end of the world." The Englishman said in a strangled voice.

Goldie froze. "How do you know that?"

Teddy was standing beside a vending machine, holding a copy of the _Daily Fable._ There was a sign above the vending machine.

_Integral Random Clues & Conveniently Placed Information for Time Travellers & Other Adventurers._

_Sponsored by Plot Points, Inc., your friendly plot points warehouse._

"Plot Points." Goldie murmured. "Sponsored by Plot Point, Inc."

"Did you hit your head or something?"

"Don't you get it? I've heard that lots and lots of times. All this with the Mary Sues, the weapon, and how they were waiting for us. And all the conveniently placed information in the last chapter points us back to the one place: Plot Points, Inc."

"Plot Points, Inc. works with the Society to develop Anti-Sue weaponry. They can't be working for the True Sue at the same time. Someone would have noticed."

"Yet we were ratted out to the Mary Sues in the first place, remember. And that could have only been done by someone in Society. You think someone would have noticed that, too. That's why in most circles they're called _double agents._"

_Either that or someone saw us go back in time._

_And when I find out who did it, I'm gonna kill him and earn our PG rating._

"A consortium of evil masterminds posing as a legitimate business to further their own goals? Don't you think that's a little… cliché?" Teddy said doubtfully.

Goldie grinned. "Hun, if there's one thing I ain't, it's cliché." Remembering what she had taken from the past, Goldie pulled out the document. "Look at this."

Teddy did, and for a moment he felt faint.

_Cannon Converter._

_Sponsored by Plot Points, Inc._

"Oh my God." Teddy said. "Never mind Make-Believe Land, the Mary Sues are going to destroy the whole of Cannon. This will destroy all of fiction as we know it."

"Lets move it and stop this thing!" Goldie shoved the plans for the Cannon Converter back into her bra. "Onwards, Macduff."

There was an elevator at the far end of the hall. Goldie stabbed the button that said _Anywhere But Here_ and they were off. The two of them breathed a sigh of relief as Teddy's watch began to tick over once more. _You schmucks are really in for it, aren't you? _One might think that it would be handy if time would stop, but after a while you realise that it ain't that good when you get sucked into a black hole needing to go to the toilet, and you stay like that for a week.

"Come on, we gotta go!"

"In a minute! Dammit, you have a girlfriend, you should know by now how long it takes." Goldie came out of the restrooms.

"We have a problem."

"Yes, we have the same problem. You."

"No, seriously. Plot Points, Inc. is in the middle of Fiction City." Teddy sounded worried. But then again, he mostly sounded worried when he was around Goldie Locks.

"So? What's the problem?"

"People belive I am saving the world as we speak. If I suddenly turn up in the middle of the City, the Royal Society will know that something is wrong."

" Just make yourself a little less stand-outty, then." She gestured toward his blue fringe. After a moment Teddy changed the colour of his hair and subtly twisted his features with a _why didn't I think of that? _expression on his face. Goldie wouldn't have been able to tell it was the same man if he'd kept his mouth shut. The posh British tone was the only thing left unchanged.

"How's that?"

"Not bad. If I didn't already know who you were, I'd ask you out on a date."

"Hey! Or possibly, thank you."

"A bit of both." Goldie shrugged.

"I don't think I better go around calling you 'Goldie', either. It isn't exactly a common name."

"Surprisingly not. All right, you can call me… Bella."

"Bella?"

"My middle name." She pulled a face. "Goldie Bella Locks. It's like my mother was subliminally influencing me to become a stripper."

Teddy tried not to, but he smiled anyway. "What about you, broomstick-boy? Do we use your middle name too?"

"Yes, that'll be good." He said sarcastically. "Like no one would notice another Remus walking around Fiction City."

"No way. Your dad actually named you after himself?"

"Ted for my grandfather, Remus for my father."

"Now that's just _mean_. And shows a lack of imagination. It's like you suddenly have all these life expectations heaped on you before you can walk. Like, shouldn't a child be allowed to develop their own personality instead of having one pushed on them?" Goldie stopped at the look on Teddy's face. "Teddy's just a shortened form of Edward, right?" She changed the subject.

"I suppose so."

"There you are. Bella and Edward, at your service." Goldie grinned.

It surprising how easy it was to walk out the gates of the Fan Domain considering the trouble it took to get inside. Goldie grasped Teddy's arm and hauled herself up on her tiptoes. "We are. So. Dead."

There were vicious-looking men and women lining the massive gates, and a pathway of three metres wide was cleared right through from the True Sue's iron and steel palace. Something had been dragged out of the complex. Soldiers marched past and civilians scurried out of their way.

The two of them slipped out the gate. The marks in the road lead directly to Fiction City. "They moved the weapon from the Fan Domain to the City?" Goldie hissed. "Why would they do that? How could no one notice?"

"It would be easy." He said grimly. "Today is the Honoured Fandom parade, where the elected most popular fandom gets to show off. There are all sorts of themed floats."

"I remember last year. I was in day detention." She sounded heartily thankful for that. "Plot Points, Inc.?"

"Plot Points, Inc." Teddy agreed. "Give me your hand."

"Excuse me?" She sounded startled.

He gave his eyes a little roll. "Wizards can Apparate inside the vanishing points as long as they have a clock-on pass. Which I do. And I am allowed to extend my access to one plus-one."

Goldie screwed up her nose and reluctantly reached forward to grasp his long fingers. "I hate going on holiday with you. It's like going on vacation with the little boy that used to sit behind you in class and pull your pigtails."

"Personally, I never had that experience."

"No, you were probably the one doing the pulling."

Teddy paused for a moment. Then he steadily went quite red. Goldie raised her eyebrows, nonplussed. "And according to the almost unnatural urge of Romance Story Clichés, you ended up dating her, correct?"

"What do I have to do to get you to shut up?"

"That's a secret I'm only giving up on my wedding night."

Another vomit-inducing moment later, the two of them were standing on the brightly coloured, seizure inducing, embarkation point in Plot Points, Inc. Teddy's face was pinched and determined. He was going to get to the bottom of this. And then go on a _looong _holiday.

"This way."

"I wanna go _hooome_." Goldie wined.

"The time stream is an unstable force. According to all relevant data we have on the-"

Voices. Goldie and Teddy jumped off the Apparition point and hid behind a device that looked like a giant blender.

"This has never worked before. What makes you think it will now?"

The two scientists walked down the centre isle. "We are not in a position to argue with She who Is Above. We do what we are ordered to do."

And then they saw the cyborg.

"My God." Teddy whispered. "They've got themselves a Dean Winchester doll."

"I wonder if I could get one."

"TXD1 engage." The second scientist said. The machine's eyes lit up for a moment. "Your secondary task is to infiltrate the Mary Sue freedom movement. What is your primary mission?"

"My primary mission is to terminate Goldie Locks and Teddy Lupin." The Dean-bot said.

"If that's the Dean Winchester in the League of Mary Sue," Goldie whispered. "Where's the real Dean Winchester?"

"Never mind that. Let's work on not getting terminated."

Teddy and Goldie gulped.


	9. Don't Worry, We're All Mad Here

**AN: From the suffering author and the cast at The Adventures of Goldie Locks, Merry Christmas, or whatever else your form of greeting is this holiday. Have a good one.**

"_Where's the real Dean Winchester?"_

They threw him into a deep, dark pit, hog-tied like a Sunday roast. His face splashed into a puddle that he could only hope was water and large rodents scuttled across the floor past him. It was clearly an inescapable prison.

But no one really seemed to comprehend the walking natural disaster that was Dean Winchester. He was good with _inescapable._

In a matter of minutes he was out of the handcuffs, twisting himself into roughly the same shape as a pretzel. Dean hadn't been born double-jointed, but since he had that accident when he was thirteen he was perfectly able to pop his right shoulder out of its socket whenever he felt the urge. Needless to say, he'd probably need to cash in on some forged medical insurance for a chiropractor later on.

Soon Dean was sitting on the floor rubbing his wrists and ankles to get the circulation flowing again. The only reason he hadn't tried to get out when they brought him in here was that someone had driven a big long needle filled with green gunk into his arm and had dropped him stone cold for at least a couple of days. He hoped it was only a couple of days.

He stared up at the circle of light far above him. One could almost hear the cogs whirring in his brain as he pondered his next move.

"Oh, very clever."

_Someone had thrown him down a plothole_.

Dean stood, and paced around in a circle for a moment, muttering to himself. Then his eyes lit up as an idea hit him like a smack across the head.

"Get out of it!"

There was a neon pink exclamation point flashing above his head. Dean swatted it away irritably. The damn cliché beetles got into everything. Lately the swarms had risen to plague-like levels. The Winchesters had been wondering whether the situation had supernatural connections.

It did. Sort of. But instead of a vampire or werewolf or the walking dead, they got some evil bitch trying to take over the world. Again. Still. Ultimate power. Death and destruction for all. Whatever. It was actually a bit ho-hum, been-there-done-that. Damn, were there no original ideas anymore? Come on, already!

Dean placed his hands against the wall and squinted up at the circle of light. He knew a little bit of the machinations of plot holes. He'd heard about their unpredictability, and how they were rips in the otherwise smooth fabric of Fiction. Dean had feigned sleep when his brother had been lecturing on about them, but he still had listened to every word.

They said logic didn't exist in a plothole. He didn't know who _they _were, but maybe they were right.

Maybe his crazy plan was crazy enough to actually work.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he began to hum a few bars of a Led Zeppelin song.

"…and she's buying a stairway to heaven." The off-key chorus came to a close and Dean crossed all his fingers. Slowly, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the ground began to quake and then smoothly parted to reveal a shiny white marble step. Dean's arms dropped to his sides and he stared at it as the staircase began to unfold, moving upwards at increasing speeds.

_It worked._

He jumped on the steps as they burst out of the plothole and continued climbing. Dean crashed onto the floor and rolled along the hallway as the steps drilled a hole through the next storey floor and kept going.

"Man." He stood and dusted off his knees. "If we could bottle a plothole, we'd make a fortune off the stuff."

"I know what you're saying."

A voice from behind. Dean tensed himself up to either fight or flee, before peering up over his shoulder.

Three mismatched beings where gathered about the coffee machine about three feet behind him. All of them were armed with bright blue weapons that resembled sharpened sporks, and were dressed in cracked armour reinforced with cardboard and masking tape. Clearly these guys weren't the font line crack troops.

All three of the monsters themselves looked like they appeared to be held together with staples and prayer. It was like God just got bored on the seventh day and put all the leftover bits in a giant blender to see what he could come up with.

"It was like I was just saying to Hector over here." The first monster said. "If we could distil the unstable atmosphere of a plothole we'd be rolling in it."

"And how exactly were you planning to do that, Gerald?"

"Elementary, my dear Edmund. Merely snap freeze a portion of the air inside the hole before doing some controlled experiments to discover the exact temperature that reduces the gas to a liquid. I think I'll call it _A Whiff of Improbability._"

"Look me up when you get started." Dean said. "Um, not that I'm objecting or anything, but shouldn't you guys be up and charging after me screaming something about how you'll suck out my insides with a straw when you catch me?"

"Dude, like, can you not read the sign or something?" Hector asked with a roll of his bulbous eyes.

Dean looked up.

_By mandated court order, all employees are lawfully entitled to take their lunch break between 1.30pm and 2.00pm. However all staff are expected to return to their posts by exactly 2.00pm or risk untold circumstances._

_This vaguely threatening memo is brought to you by the management of Plot Points, Inc._

"We're legally allowed to take this time off without interference from the management." Gerald said.

"Or we go to the Union." Edmund added. Dean winced. The Worker's Union just hadn't been the same since committee members were awarded the right to bear WMDs, or Weapons of Mass Dictation.

"Well, good for you. Standing up for worker's rights everywhere and all that junk. Fight the good fight, kicking ass and taking names." Dean began to walk backwards down the hall. "In fact, why don't you take a stand right now? Give yourselves another thirty minutes? Go the whole hour? Power to the people!" After thrusting his fist into the air, he turned around and hightailed it, before lunch was over.

Gerald turned to Hector and Edmund. "The short human has a point. What do you think about revolting?"

"Gerald, you are revolting."

The building was like a maze. Dean crept up stairs and crawled through ducts until the walls and floor changed from drab, I-didn't-have-enough-paint-left-to-do-a-whole-room-so-I-just-mixed-the-leftovers-all-together grey, to shockingly bright and scarily cheerful, like the place was either a very frightening funhouse or and insane asylum filled with interior decorators. He looked at the emblem on the wall.

_Plot Points, Inc. Your friendly plot points warehouse._

"Figures. We needed a central plot point right about now." Dean snuck forward, reaching out to a door marked _Top Secret, Don't Tell Anybody_, and was about to slink through it when the door was flung open from the other side and he was almost trampled.

"Hey!" He shouted. "Watch where you're going!"

"Hey, you noob, how about you pay more attention instead of sneaking around where you're not-" The blonde woman stopped speaking, and her eyes widened. "Ack!" She said. "Wrong way, wrong way!" She shouted back to someone behind her. As she was about to disappear back the way she had come, Dean grasped wildly at the sleeve of her shirt.

Cloth ripped.

The girl stood there, unbelieving. "You bastard! That was Stella McCartney! I thought even a terminator would recognise prize couture when he saw it."

Dean's eyebrows rose. "I'm not a terminator, lady." He said.

"That's exactly what a terminator would say!"

He stopped to ponder that one for a minute. "I suppose so." He confessed. "There's not much point giving people time to react."

"So you admit it!"

"What? No! Jeez, woman, you off your meds?" He demanded. "I'm not a friggin' terminator! For one thing, I have a much cooler jacket. And way bigger biceps."

She looked him up and down, from damp, smelly flannel shirt to suspiciously stained jeans. Finally she must have concluded that there was no real threat in him, and called back to the person in the next room. "False alarm. I've found the good one."

A moment later, and a dark-haired man stuck his head around the door. "Hallo." He said, sounding decidedly English. Dean's eyes narrowed. Maybe it was just his particular experiences, but he really didn't like English people. "What's going on? He's the right one, then?"

The tone the other man used annoyed Dean just a bit. "Just a little bit of a bother. Nothin' t' worry about, Guv'nor."

"Boys." The woman said warily. "I'm Goldie Locks."

"Goldilocks?"

"Goldie Locks." She repeated, emphasising that in fact the 'locks' was her last name. "This is Teddy Lupin." And before Dean could so much as swear, the guy Teddy stared at him a moment before shimmering right into another shape, a kid with blue hair and sharp eyes. "Pleased to meet you." The kid said, offering his hand. Judging by the look on his face, it was merely a formality and he really had no desire to meet Dean at all.

Dean managed not to wince as he shook Lupin's hand. The skin didn't feel rubbery like a Shapeshifter's, but you could never be too careful these days.

"I'm-"

"Dean Winchester. We know." The English guy said, his flat voice telling Dean that he had been thoroughly briefed on the Winchesters. And he did not _approve._ That ticked Dean off mightily.

"Oh, you poor thing. It must have been hard for you, in those middle-upper-class suburbs for the underprivileged such as yourself. Kid, you don't know anything about me."

The two males stared at each other across the room. Goldie stepped between them, after verifying that neither of them were about to do anything stupid. Stupid_er_. "We can have pistols at ten paces later." She said. Her tone brokered no room for refusal. "Right now we need to get down to that weapon and destroy it, while similarly avoiding being terminated by the Dean-bot."

"Dean-bot?" Dean glanced at Goldie in surprise. She grinned back wryly.

"A terminator with your face has been sent to kill us." She said.

Dean rocked back. "Why is everyone always stealing my face?" He demanded of the walls. "I like my face! I'm very attached to my face! That's just not_ fair_."

"We'll worry about this later." Goldie was swiftly assuming her dominance over the two men. Dean guessed that inside she was much different than the creampuff on the outside. "We've got the weapon to destroy or the whole of Fiction goes ker-splat."

"What?"

"The True Sue is going to destroy all of Make-Believe Land with something called a Cannon Converter. It will tear the Multiverse apart." The Englishman said.

"You've got to help us." Goldie said.

Dean rubbed at his eyes. "Oh God." He muttered.

"I've got to save the world with Malibu Barbie and Glinda the Good Witch."


	10. How to Save the World in Four Hours

**Six things that distinguish The Adventures of Goldie Locks from other mainstream fanfiction:**

**?** The male and female leads that disliked each other at the beginning remain so throughout the fanfic.

**? **The apocalypse decides to arrive on a nice sunny day for once, instead of the dead of night where it's cold and rainy and the leads can be lit noir-like against a dark and dingy backdrop.

**? **The lead does not go on a deep, dark emotional journey of the soul, does not find his soul mate who is not cruelly taken from him and doesn't go home a changed man.

**?** To avoid badly written and anatomically impossible sex, the whole situation is averted by censoring large portions of text, leaving it so the most sexually suggestive scene is the wizard caressing his wand.

**?** The evil villain does not turn out to be really a nice guy after all.

**AND**

**?** The female lead is a bitchy, rude, self-possessed kleptomaniac ex-dwarf and a blatant Mary Sue, but for some unfathomable reason, people enjoy reading about her.

* * *

Dean Winchester was tall, muscled, and indecently handsome. Needless to say, Teddy hated him almost immediately. Okay, Teddy himself could look tall, muscled, and indecently handsome if the whim took him, but it really wasn't the same. Underneath he would still be the same slightly too skinny and a bit uncoordinated wizard he had always been. As soon as Winchester had sussed out the fact that the wizard and the temporarily-Mary-Sue-type person weren't threats, he had immediately attempted to lay the charm on thick for Goldie.

_Bloody smarmy American git._

Goldie Locks responded to his advances with one of her ego-shattering, flat-eyed stares and Teddy felt slightly better.

When the bell signalling the end of the lunch break went off, the three of them scarpered, slipping into a conveniently empty office. _Plot Points. We're here to help you!_ "Convenient." Goldie turned back to the two men like a general surveying the troops and pulled the plans for the Cannon Converter out. "This is what we're looking for." She spread the blueprints across the desk and Dean pulled them toward himself to take a proper look.

"Damn, who the hell's been working on this? All the evil geniuses from every James bond movie ever made and a few that haven't?" He said. "Should be fairly easy. We're in. All we have to do is find this ray gun and destroy it. No mess. Nice 'n' easy."

Dean's optimistic tone annoyed Teddy to no end. "It's not that simple, colonial." He said. He looked down at his watch with the stars and the moons. "We have seven hours until the Royal Society attacks the Fan Domain. But the Sues know we're coming and are launching a counter-attack, which is, I'm guessing, where the weapon will be detonated. However the True Sue knows that there is a resistance group among her Mary Sues, and she has surely laid a trap for them."

He looked at Goldie and Dean. "Someone has to go to the Royal Society and get them to delay the attack, and someone has to go back into the Fan Domain to warn the Mary Sue resistance."

"Did you just call me a colonial?"

"My point is, this is about more than the weapon. The Cannon Converter must be made a priority, but though we now know definitely where it is, that buys us a little time. Now I suggest-"

"Excuse me, who died and left you in charge?" Winchester interrupted.

Teddy scowled. "I was merely offering a suggestion seeing that you so far have not come up with any great pearls of wisdom."

"You little-"

"_Cut it out!_ My God, are all interfictional relations like this? You pair are acting like a couple of pre-pubescent teenage girls," Goldie stepped between the leading man and the supporting character, cutting into the testosterone-fuelled tension. "But if you want to get all daytime TV about it, it was technically _me _that was put in charge of this mission."

"B-but-" Teddy spluttered. Goldie looked at him. "Think about it." She insisted. "You were only there to get me safely into the Fan Domain and protect me until I had found the weapon and the missing half of Demons 'R' Us." She indicated Dean.

"Now here's what we do:"

Teddy Lupin and Dean Winchester both looked at Goldie Locks. Not that he ever would have admitted it, but Teddy was secretly glad that Goldie had stepped in and taken control. He tried to sound confident, but he really had no idea what they were supposed to do in the face of imminent destruction.

"Teddy, you need to get out of here. Go to the Royal Society as soon as you can and convince them to delay their attack. Tell them that the Sues they're about to obliterate are probably on their side. I've got a feeling that the True Sue is gonna use the good Mary Sues as bait to draw the Royal Society out."

"And then her and her cronies will jump us from behind and wipe everyone out at once." Dean mused. "Clever bitch. No match for _our _clever bitch, though." The way he said it was meant as a complement.

"Thank you." Goldie said.

"What about you?"

"Me and Butch are going back to the Fan Domain."

"We are?" Dean echoed. "Why would I want to go there? They want me dead!"

"Me an' Teddy disappeared from the Fan Domain hours ago. They probably want me dead too!" His tone didn't impress her. Where was the hero that laughed in the face of danger? Maybe he had just finally wised up and realised that being a hero _hurt_. "And after all I was told about _you_, I find out that you're a bigger wet blanket than my friend Ali, and he's a Persian rug that lives near the beach."

Dean gave her the Dark-And-Brooding-Hunk glare. Goldie was tempted to stick out her tongue. She poked a sharp finger into his breastbone. "Besides, the Mary Sue resistance will only answer to _you _since that's where your double is, consolidating his power. He's taken your face. Are you _really _okay with that?"

His face screwed into a grimace. Apparently the woman had read the fact file about him and had come to realise that Dean was very touchy when it came to other creatures trying on his face for kicks. "You're a very manipulative woman, aren't you?" He said finally.

"Welcome to my world." Teddy muttered. "What about you?"

"I've got someone to find." Goldie said grimly. "And I'm going to beat what he knows out of him, if need be."

"What about the weapon?"

Goldie grabbed Teddy's wrist so she could squint at his watch. "We do our jobs ASAP." She said. "And meet back here in… four hours enough for you?" She asked the young wizard.

Teddy nodded. "If I'm not tied up in any bureaucratic red tape." Goldie could tell by the way his brows knitted that the man was worried. Teddy was good at worrying, but this time she was fairly sure he had a good reason. "It'll be fine." She gave a weak little grin and then patted him familiarly on the bottom. Teddy couldn't help but grin back. "But," She said, with her own worried look. "Teddy, if we don't make it back here in four hours, you're going to have to destroy the weapon yourself."

"I will." He vowed.

Goldie glanced after Teddy as the wizard walked away, the almost-comical blue hair glinting in the sunlight. For a moment it felt like a small furry animal was crawling up her throat, but then she shook her head and the unsettling feelings were lost. _Breathe, _she told herself. _Millions of people are relying on you to not screw this up._

_No pressure._

As Teddy walked away, he smoothly shifted shape back into his handsome alter-ego of Edward. He moved with a purpose. Early on in his training with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fictional Characters he discovered that if you looked at all times like you meant business and walked like you knew exactly where you were going, people tended to leave you alone.

In this case it helped that he _did _know where he was going. Slipping out the service entrance, his legs almost folded underneath him as he stepped out onto the familiar soil of Fiction City.

Teddy hurried down the footpath, shouldering through the crowds, which were lining up for the unholy, consumer-driven spectacle that was the Honoured Fandom parade. Scowling, Teddy dropped the illusion of Edward, changing smoothly back into his own shape.

"Oh my God, it's Teddy Lupin!" A hysterical female voice shouted out behind him, and in a matter of seconds, the crowds of fans parted around him, like Moses parting the Red Sea. Teddy looked around. During festival time, all Apparation licences were temporarily revoked so that even the most frugal wizard was forced to walk through the bazaar and almost physically _compelled _to buy something.

It was a stupid rule, but at the last election the majority voted for the law to remain, as one of the councillors said, if the rest of the population had to suffer the festival, then the wizards could damn well endure it too.

It was too far to walk so he saw only one other option. Forcing himself not to think about how many Health & Safety rules he was breaking, Teddy pushed through the crowd and swiftly scaled the protective barrier. His long legs took him quickly to the nearest float and he seized a fistful of fake flowers before hauling himself up off the street.

All the float's occupants were looking at him as though the only time they'd seen a blue-haired man hop a float was during pledge week, or while they were really drunk. Maybe both. Teddy fished around in his jeans and pulled out his badge.

"Royal Society. I'm commandeering your float."

All was silent until the leading character stepped up to him to ask a question.

"What's up, Doc?"

* * *

The route Goldie and Dean were taking was somewhat less scenic and a lot more confusing. The Fan Domain wasn't exactly your everyday holiday destination, and knowing the Dean-bot could be anywhere waiting to rip you limb from limb made it even less appealing. Walking along, it occurred to Goldie that people actually _paid_ to feel like this, with the adrenaline pumping and the senses tingling and the little voice telling you to hide under the covers until it's all over.

Pondering as she was, it took her a moment to register the fact that Dean was talking to her.

"Huh?"

"I said, 'now what'?"

He was looking at her so expectantly that all of a sudden; Goldie's universe came crashing down.

"I _don't know!_" She hollered. "You're supposed to be the big, bad hero who's an expert in all this supernatural stuff. I'm just a dwarf with anger-management issues from a town so small you could drive up the middle of the main street and never even notice. I'm not a hero, I'm a thief. I don't do so well with the fate of the universe hanging in the balance."

Dean winced and looked around, hoping that no one had heard her meltdown. He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her into a small alcove so that both of them were off the main walkway.

"Listen to me." He hissed. He felt like shaking her. Damn, why did she have to pick _now_? "If you were such a pathetic waste of space that you seem to think you are, how come you and David Copperfield back there managed to get all the way in here and work out most of the True Sue's plans?"

"Trial and error, mostly." Goldie sniffed.

"Just keep it together a bit longer. We_ need you_." He stopped, looking awkward, suddenly aware of what he had said and how girly it sounded. He dragged a hand across his mouth. "Now I don't know where that came from. I don't do motivational speeches by a rule."

"Teddy told me this one. He said that in the Fan Domain, fanfiction clichés gain strength the closer you are to the centre. Or something. Super strength. Super abilities." She frowned, and crossed her arms. "The tendency for the lead female to freak out at least once before the end of the story." She mumbled.

"Supporting characters that suddenly become freakishly insightful?" Dean suggested. "Let's just go before we get more superpowers. This isn't _Heroes._ I don't think I could stand getting in touch with my feminine side."

Goldie punched his shoulder. Dean grinned. "See? Back to normal already."

She took him back to the plothole that she and Teddy had fallen down. It now seemed so long ago. Dean held out an arm to stop her. "I got this one," He said, and jumped. Goldie peered over the edge, shocked. "Winchester, you moron!" She shouted out behind him.

She was about to throw herself in after him when the ground began rushing up at her. Dean was grinning at her, all smug and satisfied. He offered his hand and Goldie swung down before Dean could mention how clever he was.

The column of rock settled back down into the ground.

"This way."

The underground base merged smoothly with the cave so you didn't realise you were in the Mary Sue's resistance hideout until you stepped onto the carpet.

"Remind me why we're doing this again?"

"You know, end of the world, death and destruction, widespread slavery, out of coffee."

"Ah." Dean stroked his chin. "Must be Tuesday."

Goldie heard claws clacking across the floor. She motioned Dean back against the wall and peered around the corner. There was the sound of an office door closing. "Mervin." She hissed.

"Who?"

After all her pondering and roundabout logic, Goldie had concluded that only the bloodhound could have ratted on them, causing her and Teddy to be captured in the first place. She had been wondering why Mervin had the plans to the Cannon Converter in the first place, and now she knew without a doubt.

"He was helping the True Sue plan all this. He's helping her to trap the free Mary Sues. As soon as the blueprints went missing, he cried wolf." She balled her fists. "I'm gonna kick his hairy snout so far down his neck he'll have to stick his toothbrush up his ass to clean his teeth."

Dean was staring at her with something akin to startled horror. "What?"

"Have you always been this violent?" He asked. "You should be wearing a _Parental Advisory _sign 'round your neck."

"You have a problem with that?"

"Actually, it's kinda hot."

Speechless, with the back of her neck growing hot, Goldie barged into Mervin's office to avoid thinking about what he had just said.

"Hi, fleabag. It's time for your neutering." She announced, Dean not far behind her.

"Someone's in the doghouse."

"_Someone's in the doghouse?_"

"Well, you've already used the neutering line." Dean shot back. The suspiciously ambidextrous dog leapt to his hind paws and began to back away. "Easy, Fido." Dean easily stepped over the little desk and shepherded Mervin to the back corner of the room. "Panic button." Dean said over his shoulder to Goldie.

"You are in direct conflict with your programming. Stand down." The bloodhound commanded.

"Looks like my circuits have gone a bit haywire." Dean sneered.

"Fu-" Mervin shrunk back even further as he realised that he was no longer dealing with Robo-Dean, but the genuine article himself. The dog began to whine in the back of his throat, a pitiful leave-me-alone-or-I'll-cry sound. "What do you want?"

Goldie carefully closed the office door. "Just a few questions, Merv. Me and my friend have just got a few questions."

"Yeah, like I'll believe you, the time travelling blonde." The dog sneered. "I wont tell you anything!"

Dean lifted the bloodhound by the scruff of the neck. Mervin was only a small dog, and Dean Winchester was a tall man. It was a long way to fall. "Drop him." Goldie commanded coldly.

"Don't drop him! Don't drop him!" Mervin spun around in Dean's grip, the extra folds of skin around his neck giving him some extra leeway but not enough to escape or claw the man holding him. "I'll tell you! Don't drop me!"

"You really are a spineless little prairie dog, aren't you?" Dean asked. He glanced at Goldie. "I think I can safely say I've never done this before."

"This is me. Living large." Goldie said dryly. "You just hold the puppy like a good boy." She clasped her hands behind her back, assuming the classic spy-interrogator pose.

"All you're missing is the riding crop and the bad accent."

"Shut up." Goldie looked flatly at the bloodhound. "_You_ betrayed us to the Mary Sues." She said in an ugly voice. "_You_ built the Cannon Converter. _You're_ helping _her _lead the League of Mary Sue into a trap. Why?"

"Did she pay you?" Dean asked. "Or threaten you?"

Mervin just hung there, quivering. "I'm thinking threaten, then."

"Well, if it works…" Goldie poked the canine in the ribs. "Tell us what you know or I'll rip off your head and hang it on the wall in my apartment." Her face was deadly serious. After her little spaz, Goldie was determined to see this through to the end. Otherwise she had risked everything for nothing.

"I didn't want to!" The dog wailed. "She made me do it! I have a family. I have eight puppies to feed. She said she'd drown them in a bucket of water if I didn't help her! What was I supposed to do?" Goldie felt a small twinge of sympathy, but this was not the time for emotion. "Because I used to be a robotics scientist long before she took over-"

"Wait. Did you build Robo-Dean?" Dean demanded.

The dog looked forlorn.

"There must be a kill switch." Goldie said. "The last thing we need is some cyborg busting in when we're trying to save the day."

"Put me down."

Dean looked at Goldie, eyebrow raised.

"Put me down, please?"

"Do it." The woman said. The bloodhound dropped ungraciously to the floor. Barely missing a beat, the dog scurried to the desk, picked up a pen and began to write something on a scrap of paper. It was quite a neat trick, considering that Mervin had no opposable thumbs. Or fingers.

"It's a voice code tied to Dean Winchester's vocal patterns, so only you and… Robo-Dean have the ability to shut it down. A kill switch that is guaranteed never to be tripped."

"Well, that shouldn't be too hard, since I _am _Dean Winchester."

The bloodhound folded the scrap of paper in half and handed it back to Dean. The man knelt down to take it off the dog and opened the paper to read whatever it said. And then the most curious thing happened.

Dean blushed.

"What is it?" Goldie stood on her toes, craning her neck to try and see. "I can't see! What is it?"

"Something that Dean Winchester has always secretly wanted to say, but never would. An extra precaution built in to make sure the bucket of bolts wouldn't destroy _himself_." The furry scientist looked carried away by his own genius. "However, you _must _remember to be at least twenty feet away."

"Why's that?"

"Because it is literally a _kill _switch, wired into the auto destruct. My idea, in case of, well, just because, really."

Goldie was still trying to see the password. Dean balled the paper in his fist and shoved it into a pocket.

"Just a little hint?" She wheedled.

"No."

"I wont tell anyone."

"Liar."

"Mr Winchester." Mervin interrupted. "If you are attempting to stop the True Sue's war, Robo-Dean will try and kill you. You _will _have to say the words."

"Gulp." Goldie said.


	11. Never Put your Fanfic on Hiatus

_

* * *

_

A _**shame **__is getting to the end of a tale you have been thoroughly enjoying._

_A__** crying shame **__is realising the story doesn't actually finish for an undetermined number of books, and you aren't sure you have the stamina to get through them all._

_An __**epic **__is a book or series of books that reach cult status and you can read over and over again without ever getting tired of the plot or the characters._

_An __**epic failure **__is a book or series of books that you read and simultaneously wonder how they managed to get published in the first place, why it's so darn popular and who they bribed to get their legions of pre-teen fans._

* * *

"It's quiet."

"If you say it's too quiet, I swear I'll pop you one."

Goldie had to grudgingly admit that Dean was right. The people were gone. There were only the robots and Mervin left to man the fort. She looked down at the bloodhound as he closed the door behind them.

"Where is everyone?"

"Er," He said, looking sheepish. "It's nothing to worry about." Dean winced as soon as the canine uttered that sentence. As soon as someone said that there was nothing to worry about, he was always immediately set on edge. "I'm sure it's just typical-"

"Stop waffling or you'll be chasing dumptrucks in that kennel in the sky."

Mervin hung his head. "Two hours ago the True Sue ordered all Mary Sues and Gary Stus to group in the Wasteland and await further instructions. She kept a group of about seven Sues out, which she took wherever she was going."

Dean and Goldie looked at each other. _That's not good._ "She knew we were coming. We're out of time." Goldie said.

Dean's eyes were hard. "Then let's go whoop some ass." He said, an almost maniacal edge to his voice.

"Are you actually _enjoying _this?"

"Imminent destruction. Evil chick who wants to be the Supreme Bitch. Unspecified amount of time until the end of the world. This is just another day at the office for me."

Goldie turned to Mervin. "How far are the Wastelands from here?" She asked. The Wastelands were the only existing remnants from the War of the Words long ago. Legend said that where the ruins now stood there was once a magnificent civilisation known as the Emerald City.

"About a week away if you run really fast."

Goldie felt like banging her head against the wall. Her wellspring of crazy ideas had run dry. Mervin was chewing at a forepaw when inspiration struck. "We can fly!"

Dean's eyes darted around like that of a trapped wild animal. "Fly? I'm… not so good with the flying."

"Reach deep down inside yourself and grow some testosterone, will you?!" Goldie snapped.

"Wow." Dean said, his brow furrowed. "You never knew my dad, did you?"

Little did she realise that soon she would have exactly the same opinion as Dean Winchester on flying when she realised exactly _what _was Mervin's method of transportation.

"You've _got _to be kidding me." She exploded.

The hangar full of giant eagles looked down on the three of them. The one nearest to Goldie looked like he could take her head off in one snap of his wickedly curved beak. Oblivious to his companion's discomfort, Mervin rattled on. "All right, pretties, let's go. Dean, you go on Bluetip. I'll go on Feather. Goldie, you take Ramón over there. Good little birdies. I'll get you some crackers later."

"_Dulce madre de Dios_." The obviously Spanish eagle muttered. "I'll tell you what you can do with those crackers, _idiota_."

* * *

After Teddy explained most of the peculiarities of his rather unique situation to the cast of the Looney Tunes, the characters were almost too pleased to help him out, even going so far as to ask the float driver nicely to drop the young wizard at the door of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fictional Characters.

Bugs Bunny asked him for his autograph before he left.

The office was festooned with political propaganda. The next Society electoral vote was coming up, and the position of President was up for grabs. There were many characters coming forward for the head job, though it looked like a pretty sure thing that the Wolverine would be having yet another clean sweep at the leadership job. Fictional characters slept better at night knowing that Wolverine was looking after them, rather than Shrew the shrew who had a walk-on part in the Wind in the Willows.

Teddy stepped into the elevators. The lifts were the only things left that were distinctly wizarding. He pressed the button for the President's floor and the elevator was off, shooting left before going straight up so fast that anyone who didn't actually work here would be a gooey mess on the floor.

The lift pinged on the correct floor and the doors slid open smoothly. Each President had a different way of dressing the top floor. During the corruption of the Sopranos' age, the walls and floors were dark and ominous, curtains permanently drawn menacingly across the windows. Wolverine, however, had simply removed the windows to begin with. Everything was industrial grey and sleek, in a no-frills kind of way, except for the row of glass cases that ran along the far wall.

All but one of those cases held supersuits, sometimes varying in colour and design. Beside each case was a plaque that bore the year the suit was issued, and a list of enemies faced before the next outfit was manufactured. Teddy's respect for Wolverine ratcheted up a further notch. Surely a man would have to be brave to face his enemies wearing a strange concoction of leather and spandex?

He knocked on the office door. Wolverine was very particular about visitors knocking before entering the office. The last person who barged in and took Logan by surprise ended up with a spoon shoved through his skull.

They removed the utensil all right and it didn't harm his brain all that much, but now when the agent stands with his ear to the wind, the hole makes a pretty whistling sound. Some may say that Wolverine was overly paranoid. The President said that he was only very, very alert.

The doors slid open.

The office was filled with more paraphernalia from the good old days when you could decapitate the suspect and they would be all right the next morning when the Authors needed a villain for the next issue.

"It's Agent Lupin." Teddy called. "Sir, are you in? I've got something very important to tell you."

"It's a shame he's not here." The voice was high and female, and before Teddy could even say _accio, plot point,_ the woman stood up from Wolverine's high-backed leather recliner, her back to the young wizard. "So why don't you tell me instead?"

Teddy was shocked. Nothing in the last ten chapters had led him to the conclusion that there would be yet another twist before the end.

The woman's glorious silky hair fell in untamed waves halfway down her back, and she was clothed in a simple robe of light pink that shifted and defined her form with the slightest movement. She ran a hand along the long, smooth ivory column of neck, and gave a low laugh. It sounded a little odd, a little distorted, rather like her voice had been.

But then she turned and Teddy recoiled.

Where the enchanting eyes in the enchanting face framed with the tresses of molten gold should have been, there was…

Nothing.

Her face, that thing that should have been of such beauty, simply didn't exist, like it had never been there at all.

"You know who I am?"

"The True Sue." Teddy sighed. "And we meet face to fa- Yes, I know who you are."

"The magic meddler that thinks that he and his little mutant paramour actually have a hope of defeating _me._" Her voice had a fluid quality, like water.

"Where's Wolverine?" He asked.

"You're behind the times, sweetheart. He's gone to inspect the garrison. You should have guessed that he was expecting something." She pointed at the empty case that should have housed the most state-of-the-art supersuit to date. "Actually, he is very shortly going to have an accident." Teddy guessed that if she had a mouth she would have been smiling smugly. "In fact, the whole of Fiction City is about to have a very nasty accident when the army of Sues attack the wall in about, oh, forty five minutes or so?"

Teddy understood. "The Sues and the Royal Society are going to kill each other." He said. "Then what? You and your disciples swoop in to sort out the mess?"

"To soothe Fiction's fevered brow." The True Sue said. "Then I will proceed to crown myself Queen and lead the entirety of Cannon into the bliss that is Mary Sue." She spread her arms wide.

Teddy made a break for it then, but before he could reach the elevator, he was swept up into the huge, musclebound green arms of someone who was horribly familiar.

"Hulk got skinny blue-haired man. Hulk smash?"

The young wizard couldn't believe it. The Incredible Hulk was hardy like they depicted him. Despite his size and superhuman strength, he was surprisingly kind and gentle. He got upset when he accidentally squashed a daisy. His alter ego of Bruce Banner, on the other hand, was a nasty bastard.

"No smash, you simpleton. He's coming with us."

"Hulk no smash?" The monster looked forlorn at that.

"No smash." Teddy felt the True Sue reach into his trouser pockets searching for something. After a moment she triumphantly pulled out his wand. The little stick seemed so non-threatening now. "And you wont be needing this, either."

And before the young wizard's horrified face, the True Sue snapped his wand in half. The broken phoenix feather fizzed once, and then the magic inside died.

"Now you're just one of us."

* * *

Wolverine knew that something was brewing the very moment that Fiction's super villains began to fall off the grid. So after a quick holo-conference with his peers all around the world, he selected a supersuit and decided to check in with the City garrison, the place that assured all of Fiction's security.

All agents immediately perked up as soon as news spread that the Wolverine was on ground zero. He scowled. Security was getting lax despite the fact that the Royal Society would be shortly launching the biggest offensive that Fiction had ever seen.

The commander of the garrison was short, squat, sexist, loud, had a temper, and a love of foul-smelling fungus cigars. Julius Root was one of the only members of the Royal Society that Wolverine actually approved of, though he wouldn't go as far as to admitting that he liked the little elf. Ever since the Cannon had killed him off, Root had devoted himself tirelessly to the protection of Make-Believe Land.

"Logan." The elf greeted with a brisk nod of his head. The commander always looked like he was about to go off and do something, though Wolverine knew he was more likely to delegate and then go into his office to smoke. "How are you, mudmutant?"

"Still alive." Wolverine grunted. Though some days he had to wonder…

"Well, that's all you can really ask for." Root offered him one of his foul-smelling fungus cigars. Wolverine took one to be polite. He never actually though he could get used to those things the commander smoked. It was like chewing mould.

"How're we doin'?" He growled around the cigar.

"Nothing much has been going on lately, Logan." Root sucked in the green smoke thoughtfully and exhaled it. "I'm beginning to wonder whether they know something that we don't."

"Mm."

The elf and the mutant stood there staring out over their fair city when something strange happened.

The sounds of the city died.

No bird calls, no wind, no vehicles in the streets, no sounds the people made while waiting for work to end for the day. It was all completely silent, like someone had pulled a switch. It was like everybody and everything was unconsciously holding their breath.

Then this strange stillness was followed by a crash.

Insanity followed, Cannons were rushing this way and that, attempting to escape and invisible enemy.

The cigar dropped from Wolverine's mouth. Julius was likewise shocked, but his teeth didn't unclench from around the cigar butt. "Code red." Wolverine snapped at an unfortunate underling. "All Society members to the Garrison, now. Operation Eradicate Sue has been initiated early."

"Get the Border Guard on the com." Root ordered the techie pixie, who swiftly made the connection.

"Border Guard. This is Garrison. Please respond."

The silence was oppressive.

"Border Guard, this is Garrison. Respond."

The static seemed too loud in the suddenly airless room. "Border Guard has been neutralised." Wolverine said coldly. "Fiction City has been breeched. We are at war."

"I'll call a shuttle for you to take you to the front, sir." The pixie techie said.

Wolverine walked back outside, unsheathing his claws. "I'll see you on the battlefield, Julius." He said, then jumped off the balcony.

Commander Root watched unbelievingly as the madman freefell until his claws found purchase in the mortar walls of the garrison, and tore down the skyscraper at a speed that would pop an ordinary man's arms from his sockets. Six razor-thin marks scored the outside of the building.

"D'Arvit." He swore. "Do you have any idea how much it costs after every time you do that?!"

* * *

She took him back to Plot Points, Inc.

The building was deserted, temporarily closed down for the Fandom parade. Teddy began wondering exactly how many Plot Points employees were actually working for this insane woman. His question was answered when a large, unnecessary bright red feature wall slid aside to admit the True Sue revealing a room within a room filled with white-coated scientists, various super villains that had been plucked illegally from their fandoms, and a handful of fashionably bored-looking beautiful people.

The Hulk dropped Teddy on the floor without ceremony. The wizard landed on his back but swiftly flipped to all fours, preparing to flee.

"YOU WILL RE-MAIN WHERE YOU ARE."

Teddy raised his eyes and found himself looking directly into the toilet plunger-like apparatus attached to the tin can that housed the gooey mess inside. The dalek trundled forward menacingly; it's wheels rolling over Teddy's fingers. The wizard swore and snatched his hands to his chest.

"WIMP."

"Unnamed dalek from _Dalek_, Sideshow Bob, come with me." The True Sue demanded, picking two villains at random. "I think it's time that our young hero here was introduced to the Cannon Converter."

"Oh, what an idea." Sideshow Bob rubbed his hands together. "Finally you're entering the big leagues, Bob. Then may we do away with him?"

"Thirty minutes." The True Sue said almost mechanically.

She led them grandly to the centre of the room, Teddy hanging uselessly between them.

"Why are we not afforded the respect we deserve as villains of Fiction?" Sideshow Bob bemoaned. "It's not as though we haven't done enough to prove it, goodness knows it isn't that. I've been terrorising the citizens of Springfield for many a year, and you make small children cry. But for some reason it just feels we aren't on the same page reputation-wise as, say, the Joker, or the evil spirit from _The Exorcist._"

"I META-PHOR-IC-ALLY FEEL YOUR PAIN." The dalek said. "I FEAR SHE FEELS THAT WE ARE SUB-STAN-DARD VILL-AINS."

"How so?"

"WE HAVE BOTH BEEN OUT-WIT-TED TOO MANY TIMES TO BRING TRUE FEAR TO THE MAS-SES."

"Not worthy villains? The Union is going to hear about this."

"Kill me now." Teddy said quietly. Apparently someone else wasn't too pleased with their discussion, either.

"Stop now." The Hulk said threateningly. "Hulk smash." Maybe he had more brains than first thought.

Teddy recognised the Cannon Converter from the plans that Goldie had nicked, so he really didn't need the True Sue to point it out to him. The weapon was huge, towering way above their heads, a ray generator bolted onto an upright support and built into the skyscraper's central dome.

He struggled as the villains began to manhandle him up the walkways erected around the massive construction. For a moment he attempted to change back into the werewolf, but as he was no longer affected by the Fan Domain, fanfiction cliché's no longer affected his biological makeup. Realising that this time there might not be a way out, he slumped between his captors.

"So what happened to you?" He asked the True Sue casually. "You lose a fight with a vacuum cleaner or something?"

The Sue stayed silent for a long moment and Teddy knew he had hit a nerve by the way her hand reached reflectively up to her nonexistent face.

"I was written long ago. Long before you were born, I was the most beautiful woman in the world." She said. "Magical and powerful, I was as a God."

"What happened?"

"My Author… stopped writing me. My fanfiction fell into permanent hiatus and I was never completed." She turned back to him, and Teddy had the creepy feeling that she could see everything despite the absence of eyes.

"I _will_ have my face, Teddy Lupin. You can bet on it."

* * *

For the whole flight, Ramón swore in Spanish. Goldie had only learned a little of the language in school, and what she could make out was _overthrow our oppressors _and _eat the man-dog._

She could see the sunlight glittering off the skyscrapers in Fiction City. They were almost there. She glanced across at her two companions. Mervin's tongue was hanging out and he was obviously having the time of his life, whereas Dean had gone decidedly green and was mentally reviewing his Last Will and Testament.

Goldie saw the battle erupt below her before anyone else did. "Ramón." She shouted over the rush of the wind.

"Si."

"Can you get down there? Please?"

"Si." The eagle said again, and dropped into a sharp drive. Goldie screamed.

"Yeeaaah!"

* * *

Wolverine hit the ground, his legs buckling slightly beneath him. He tugged his claws out of the wall, and turned. Face to face with a woman with long dark hair wearing neck to toe leather, wielding a wooden stake.

"Hello." She said sombrely, and then the battle began.

He was as fast and as ferocious as his namesake. But Livida had been written as a Slayer in _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ fandom, and coupled with her accentuated Mary Sue senses, she was better. Faster. Stronger. Swiftly she began to gain the upper hand even though in a corner of her mind a little voice demanded to be heard. The little voice that wanted to know why she was doing this.

Why, when she was one of the good guys?

Wolverine's teeth were bared and a vein was popping in his forehead. The Sue had him backed right up against the wall and his supersuit wasn't built for the carrying of additional weapons. It had been assumed that his enhanced claws would do the trick, but this _woman_ had him beat easily, and he could tell by her look that heart wasn't even in it! Around him he could hear battle breaking out as the Royal Society and more Mary Sues joined the mêlée, and for a moment he really missed his less-complicated days in the X-men.

He vowed to kick the ass of that Teddy Lupin if either of them lived through today.

_They were losing._ There was only one other thing Wolverine could think of to do to save all these people.

He sheathed his claws.

"We surrender." He said. "Call them off. We surrender."

Livida didn't know what to do. She stood there, stake raised, completely still. Wolverine was calm as he looked death in the eye, and all around them individual battles came to a standstill as the Royal Society and the Mary Sues watched and waited for what was coming next.

"Livida!" A frantic scream, carried on the wind. "Livida!"

Goldie Locks' landing wasn't graceful, nor was it dignified. At the last moment Ramón had flared his wings, causing her to topple off and fall heavily into the dirt. Every eye was on her as she stood and brushed herself off.

"Hi?"

Every eye Goldie could see and doubtlessly a few she couldn't were fixed unblinkingly on her. "So I see we're all at it, then." She cleared her throat uncomfortably, and licked her dry lips. Public speaking was never one of her fortes. Someone let out an uneasy laugh that was quickly stifled.

"War, bloodshed, and all those good things. Um, am I the only one who doesn't see the point in all this? Anyone else think this has gone on way too long?" There was silence. "Anybody? Nobody? Fine. I'll just say it anyway.

"Does anyone here actually remember what started this feud? Raise your hand if you do." One character raised his hand halfway in the air, before lowering it again. "My _point_! Most of us weren't even _conceived _when we started Flaming each other. What are we fighting for again?

"An insane hag who never shows her face to her people and acts through her gauntlet of minions? A mad society whose only job is to make the little people's jobs harder? I know. I've been one of the little guys. I've been one of the most important people in existence, and I've been every shade of in-between. And because of that I've met people. I've met people who've been the cleverest, funniest, kindest people in the world, and some of them have been Fictions and some of them have been Mary Sues and some of them have been stuck in the middle.

"Look at us. The gap between us is still closing, getting closer all the time. There aren't any big differences anymore. Okay, a Sue is the romanticised ideal of Cannon, but aren't there some of you Cannon characters who are, anyway?" She pointed accusingly into the crowd. "We're all somebody's baby. We're all somebody's pet project.

"We are all somebody's Cannon."

Goldie swallowed, too stricken to wretch. "Um, well, that's it. Thanks for listening. Carry on." She turned to leave, to find Ramón and get the hell out of here.

Livida's stake clattered to the ground. Goldie spun around in time to see the Mary Sue grasp Wolverine's wrist and help haul him to his feet. The two held each other in their steely stares, their hands still clasped firmly, like they each were deciding which finger to break first.

However, despite the open hostility, it was the image of the linked hands of the Cannon Character and the Mary Sue that would be remembered for years to come.

There were echoing clattering noises all around the square of weapons being discarded. Someone began to clap, and soon it was a full-blown applause, people whistling and punching the air. Hands were raining down on Goldie's back and she was already being asked for interviews and autographs and all she really wanted to do was run away and hide, because she couldn't stand it she really couldn't stand it-

"You know you have infringed _so _many copywrite suits with that _we're all the same underneath_ speech? You could be sued into the next century." _He_ walked out of the garrison, running a hand through his short hair. Goldie pounced immediately.

"Where the hell have _you_ been?"

"My bird got buzzed by a jet." Dean shrugged. "So I took the lift down. I'm not _that _suicidal."

"You _deliberately _let me handle all that myself?"

"I thought you probably could." He said simply.

But there was still something bothering her. Dean was the first to verbalise the thought, looking around the crowded streets. "Hey. Where's that Lupin kid?"

* * *

The door burst inwards with the force of a bomb, leaving the five of them standing there shrouded in smoke. Wolverine the mutant, Livida the Slayer, Dean Winchester the hunter, Goldie Locks the misfit and Mervin the dog. Goldie had to admit that it was an impressive lineup, until it got to her.

"Holy mother…" Wolverine murmured as he stared up at the Cannon Converter. "So the bitch did have a back-up plan." He and Livida took a step forward.

"Halt!" The command was high and cold and cruel. Looking up, you could see a figure clothed in floaty pale pink. "You will go no further."

"Yeah? That so, you crazy dame." Dean called. "You gonna come down and tell us face to face, nice and polite like?"

"I'm thinking we should go up there and shake her out," Wolverine growled.

The True Sue laughed. "Darling, you just come and try. I'll wait, if you like." The robed figure swept aside to revel her hostage, lashed tightly to one of the Cannon Converter's supporting beams.

"Teddy?" Goldie shouted.

"Sorry." The Englishman apologised. "I got a little held up."

"What the hell did you want to go do that for, Lupin?"

"Little Teddy here was trying to be a hero." The Sue ran a finger down the side of the wizard's face and the young man flinched as far away as he could. "However, this time the heroes lose out."

"You lost, woman! Your invasion force was defeated."

The True Sue laughed again. "Merely a cover for this magnificent construction." She said. "My _true_ power. Not an army of silly girls and docile men, so full up of cliché and their own self-worth that there is no room for anything remotely resembling an original thought."

Livida's lip curled.

"Everything was faked." Goldie whispered.

The True Sue was disgusted. "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids." She snarled. "Oh, well. You've found me out. I'm afraid I have no choice but to destroy you now."

She flipped a switch and there were the sounds of the weapon gathering power, for maximum fire. "Take 'em down!" Wolverine roared, charging into the small army of the True Sue's devotees, slashing and hacking. Livida wasn't far behind, pulling off her best kung-fu moves. Goldie just stood there dumbly as Dean broke a Gary Stu's nose and Mervin launched himself into the fray and began attacking unprotected ankles.

"Get up there!" Dean shouted at Goldie.

"What?" She screamed back. "What in the time you have known me gives you the idea that I am even remotely physically capable of that?"

"You're a Mary Sue. Mary Sues can do anything!"

Sweat rolled into her eyes, temporarily obscuring her vision. Right now she didn't feel like she could do anything, she felt like a useless lump. She reached out and grasped the steel latticework that encased the weapon, and began to climb.

In surprisingly little time due to the Author-imposed time-lapse, the little original character hauled herself up onto the observation deck. "Hi." She waved.

"Destroy her!"

"EXTERMINATE!"

She dived at the alien creature, a hand firmly planted over it's bulbous eye-on-a-stick. With as much strength she could muster, she sent the tin can spinning to the edge of the observation deck, where the dalek teetered comically for a moment before dropping to the ground where there was an almighty smash.

"Now that's just _nasty_."

"What are you doing?!" The True Sue demanded in horror.

Goldie dropped into a fighting stance. "Just conforming to the cliché."

She focused on the yellow caricature with the crazy hair next. However, when she reached out for him, he slipped easily through her fingers. "What the-?"

"Cartoon Cannon." Sideshow Bob chuckled. "Two dimensional."

"Oh no. I might get a paper cut." She snapped, and squashed his head between her hands.

"Now you know that's just cheating." He said in a muffled voice, wandering away blindly.

"Get me out of here!" Teddy demanded as Goldie struggled with the cables securing him. "This is what happens when I'm not here to watch you." She hissed. "You get tied to poles by strange women."

The Sue was standing there watching them. Or at least Goldie assumed she was standing there watching them, until she looked up. "She's got no face!" She said, horrified.

"Don't you think I bloody well know that already? I've been up here for the last forty minutes listening to her spruke on about herself and how fabulous she is and how she's going to spit on our gravs!"

"Gravs?"

"I'm thinking it was a spelling error." Teddy said. "Let's get the hell out of here!"

"No objection from this corner."

The two of them were about to make a run for it down the walkway when something landed in front of them with a thump, bending the metal. It straightened up and looked at them, a smug smirk on its face. "Ah!" Goldie and Teddy shouted.

"Miss me?" Robo-Dean asked, a metallic clicking to his voice.

The terminator followed them back up the mesh walkway. "Do some more of that improvised action," Teddy suggested.

"Can't improvise. Too terrified." Goldie replied.

Down on the ground, Mervin butted Dean's knee. "You have to say the kill code!" The bloodhound barked. "You're the only one. You have to self-destruct Robo-Dean now!"

"But-"

"I don't give a rat's ass how much of a beating your macho image will take!" Mervin shouted. "You have to say the code _now_!"

Dean Winchester pulled in a breath, and stepped up onto a crate marked _On Yer Soapbox_. He spread his arms wide and, in possibly the bravest thing he ever would do, he bellowed the voice code at the top of him lungs, causing almost everybody to stop and stare. Some to start giggling.

The terminator backed the both of them up against the Cannon Converter's control panels. "I never imagined that it would end like this." Teddy said. "Dying after almost saving the world."

"Funnily enough, I always kinda thought I'd die knee-deep with a bunch of weirdos in a mess I pretty much made myself because I couldn't keep my mouth shut." Goldie replied.

"You're not too bad, Locks."

"You neither, Lupin."

And then from far below came a wild yell. Robo-Dean froze, and then his eyes seemed to go dead.

"Oh, bugger." Teddy said, and then the observation deck blew up.

* * *

A hand reached into the rubble to pull her out. "Am I dead yet?" She asked groggily.

"You should know by now that they can't kill off the leads in a story like this." Teddy said, releasing her hand. "Only the nameless extras die needlessly."

"I am a nameless extra." Goldie mumbled.

"Not anymore." Wolverine said, wading his way through the remains of the Cannon Converter to the two of them. "You okay, kid? Yeah, good. Locks," He said. "How would you like to be bumped up to Supporting Character? We could use more like you in the Society."

Goldie's jaw dropped. "Really?" She gasped. That promotion put her on the same footing as Teddy. Teddy, however, didn't look impressed, though he attempted to for the sake of his friend. "Supporting Character!"

Dean was still scrabbling around on the ground, turning over rocks and suchlike. "What are you looking for?"

"The True Sue. She can't have up and vanished. Could she?"

On all fours, Mervin bounded up the steel remains to the relatively intact control pylon. He stood and typed for a few minutes before anything happened. "Oh no."

"That's bad. What's 'oh no'?"

The talking bloodhound beckoned them all around the computer. "Here. The very moment that Robo-Dean detonated." He pointed to a spike on the computer screen.

"What is that?"

"Fiction was torn open precisely then." Mervin said gravely.

"But we're still alive." Goldie pointed out. "So it didn't work, did it?"

"It did. This was a very precise portal." Mervin looked around. "All this destruction for one little gateway."

"Where to?" Wolverine asked.

Mervin typed something more, and gasped. "I can't be."

"Can't be what?"

"Mervin?"

"She opened a portal to the Real World." Mervin said breathlessly.

"The Real World? I thought that was just a myth." Dean said, and there were murmurs of assent.

"Evidently not." The canine replied.

"Right, she must have a specific target." Wolverine said matter-of-factly. "Anyone hear anything?"

The silence was deafening. Finally Teddy spoke up.

"When she took me – up there, she said something about how she was never completed." He said haltingly. "She said her fanfiction ended up on permanent hiatus, and she was going to get her face."

"Dear God, it's even worse than I thought," Mervin cried. "She's gone to hunt down her Author!"

"Well, _I'm_ not going to follow her," Goldie said stubbornly.

**THE END.**

* * *

**_AN: I suppose I should mention that I don't own any of the Cannon characters that have appeared in Goldie Locks, not even a little bit. Thanks for reading._**

**_Signing off._**


End file.
